


Departure

by Nejinee



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Arrival (2016) AU, Bittersweet Ending, Drama & Romance, Fate & Destiny, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jane Foster Loves Science, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Romance, Russian Bucky Barnes, Science Fiction, Two grouches falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:25:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nejinee/pseuds/Nejinee
Summary: Captain America is recruited by the U.S. government to assist a linguist and her team of scientists in communicating with aliens after twelve mysterious space ships appear across the globe overnight.-Arrival AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the movie Arrival, which is one of the best movies I've ever seen in my life. So sit back, relax and hold on for the ride.
> 
> Please heed the tags.

 

> _There are beginnings, middles and endings to everything; for good things, bad things and whatever else exists, thrives and dies in between._
> 
> _That’s what we learned together, you and me._
> 
> _It’s difficult remembering. Sometimes I want to sit, soft and quiet in our moments forever and pretend they're real and now_.  _Other times I want to run from the memories._
> 
> _I can remember your warmth, but I can’t feel it. I remember being safe, being content and feeling confident. It wasn’t that long ago._
> 
> _I remember your arms around me, your caresses and kisses. I remember twisting my fingertips through your long, soft hair, watching the sunlight filter in between the strands, making them fuzz and shimmer and appear a warmer chestnut. The waves are looser after a night of deep sleep. I remember that._
> 
> _I remember I used to smile, to laugh, to feel happy. But it always only feels like that: a memory.  
>    
>  _

* * *

He stared at his alarm clock, pale and dull against the matching white backdrop of his bedroom wall. 

He’s due to wake up in seven minutes. This is how it always happened: him waking before he’s supposed to, waiting out the _tick-tick-ticks,_ then cancelling the alarm before the shrill bell jars his nerves.  He's gone through this every day, since day one.

Sighing, he sat up, sliding his legs off the bed, feeling the chill against his bare calves.  He wore socks to bed again. It’s because he overheats at night, gets sweaty between his shoulder blades, but gets cold feet. He stared down at his white socks tipped with grey. He wiggled his toes. Guess not even the serum could fix that.

The sun is only _just_ rising over the city, casting a cold glow over the slowly waking streets. He picked up his phone and swiped at the screen. One message from Hill telling him their morning briefing has been moved back.

He stood up and stretched, groaning into the movement. He doesn’t need the stretch, but it’s something like an old itch, reflex from his youth, back when his bones clicked and his muscles ached all the time. He pressed his palm to the alarm clock, an old metal one he found at a thrift store. It’s clunky and scuffed but it’s separate from technology and not run by any kind of computer cable, so he keeps it around. It ticks very loud at night.

 

* * *

 

Steve’s been working as an operative for SHIELD for four years now. He’s earned the title Captain, he figures, but it still sounds odd outside of work. Strangers at events come up to him and smile, babbling about how brave he was or how their grandparents used to look up to him. It always made Steve feel more out of place, talking about himself in the past tense, so he keeps to his job and he spends more time at SHIELD HQ than is probably required.

The SHIELD head office in Manhattan is well hidden, cloaked behind a miscellaneous conglomerate tower that houses, what appears to be, more than a few companies and start-ups. If he takes the far elevator to the seventeenth floor and swipes his access key card in the correct slot, the hidden hallways of SHIELD open up to him. Moving back to New York had been the step Steve needed. Washington wasn’t home. The dirt-blackened, trash-piled sidewalks of this ancient city were what he’d yearned for, at least, in some part. Much had changed since he'd gone into the ice, but the buildings, they were the same; Old, tall and casting their shadows across every avenue and side street. New York also has tangible seasons: one, two, three, four. The people are as crazy as ever, as brash and course as he remembered, even if the accents and inflections had shifted.

Just the other day he’d been halted on the way home, struck dumb, staring at a group of teenage girls dressed in all manner of flashy modern wear. They were singing ballads at the top of their lungs on Park Avenue. He’d asked a fellow pedestrian what they’d been singing, what that hauntingly beautiful song was. When he got home to his Brooklyn apartment, he immediately googled Lana Del Rey and drowned his heart in her music all night.

He didn’t fit in anymore, not really. Everyone was polite. His operatives that reported to him were respectful for the most part, and _always_ professional, even if they thought he was seven decades out-of-touch.

He found out once that a woman in the office had developed some sort of crush on him but had been shooed off by the sheer terror of approaching an historical icon and asking him to go to Smashburger, or something ridiculous like that. Implying, of course, that he was too stately, too  _staid_ , for a greasy meal on a side street.

That soured Steve interest in courting.

No, he would figure that out one day, but not now. Not this year. He needed more time.

\--

The elevator ride was silent this early. Steve watched the city fly by as the glass-encased contraption hurtled higher.

The water on the horizon was reflecting the morning sun so beautifully he wondered how, even in the mess of human evolution and industrial upheaval, some things would be forever constant, like the sparkling river. There would always be peace in nature.

Once he reached the SHIELD floor, however, it was clear something else was up, something more pressing.

Agents and directors bustled about, most of them with cellphones to their ears, barking jargon at one another. Steve frowned. It was barely five AM, why in all the hells were so many people on duty?

“There you are,” an exasperated voice sighed. Steve turned, moving back a few paces so as to look into the communal kitchen.

Maria Hill was standing there, foot tapping, waiting for the ancient coffee pot to gurgle out more dregs of black tar. In such a technologically advanced building, coffeepot somehow managed to outlive every other appliance. Steve was almost certain Clint had a hand in that.

Hill eyed him, brows furrowed. “Have you seen? Fury’s in meetings with every head of state in every, well, state, I suppose.”

Steve frowned. “Sorry, what?”

An intern bustled past him into the kitchen, arms laden with a box of what looked like rechargeable battery packs. She flung open the fridge and scooped out an entire shelf’s worth of people’s lunches and pushed the battery box into the fridge. She scooped up the bags and boxes of food that had tumbled to the floor, and promptly tossed the lot in the trash before hustling out, heels clicking.

Hill poured out her coffee, clearly unbothered by this.

“Um,” Steve twisted on his heel. More and more agents were appearing out of nowhere and running up and down the hall just outside the archway. “I missed something, I suppose?”

“Jesus Christ,” Hill sighed and stopped tinkling the spoon against her white ceramic mug. “Follow me,” she said, “we’ve got a briefing to get to. You’ll see.”

 

* * *

 

Steve stared up at the multitude of screens against the conference room wall. All of them showed news channels reporting in from around the world.

Only two feeds were in English: Montana and London.

Every single screen showed something similar, something that must have people all over the globe up and awake and staring at their own TVs.

“Christ almighty,” Steve breathed out, and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “How long have these…things…been here?”

Hill tapped at her tablet, pulling the Montana feed into the middle of the mosaic and blowing it up bigger.

A female reporter was standing in what looked like a dark, grassy meadow that looked down on a foggy operation of trucks and make-shift tents and lights and … armed forces?

“First report came in just after 3am,” Hill murmured. “Sightings popped up in Australia, then Japan, followed by China, Denmark, Pakistan, Siberia, Sierra-Leone, Russia, Sudan, the U.K., Venezuela, and finally,” she twisted her lips as if amused, “rural Montana.”

Steve watched the news channel switch cameras. The screen was filled with a strange, black fog down a rolling green hill. He squinted, but knew what he was supposed to be seeing, even if the cameraman couldn’t possibly bring it into focus at this hour. It was too dark.

Hill flipped the channel to Russia.

Multiple photos and videos flashed across the screen, some taken by photographers in helicopters.

The Japanese feed showed even more. Social media was blowing up with photos and videos from pedestrian cellphones. On every screen sat the same visual, the same otherworldly scene.

Hill flipped the channel to London where it was already midday and brightly lit.

In the sky, just behind the reporter onscreen, was something Steve couldn’t have ever imagined outside of his mystery science books from his childhood.

“Aliens,” he breathed out.

What _could_ only be an alien spaceship, was floating in the sky above London, black, smooth and ominous.

If anyone had asked Steve’s opinion, he would have said the ships all looked identical, and all looked like upright sunflower seeds. Long, rounded flat things that hovered above the land or sea. Probably best no one asked him.

“What do they want?” Steve asked.

“Nothing yet,” Hill murmured.

The conference room door opened with a shrill creak.

“Is this shit for _real_?” Clint Barton said, loping in with one of those travel coffee mugs he was so fond of.

“Are you in your pyjamas?” Hill said.

Steve looked Clint over.

Clint stared down at his black sweatpants and oversized purple t-shirt. “No?” he said.

Hill breathed in through her nose. “Go get your gear,” she said sharply. “When Fury reports in, we’ll probably need to move out.”

“Why?” Clint said, “We’re gonna what? Shoot aliens now?”

“We’re not shooting anything,” Hill said. “Go get dressed.” Her voice was steely, so Clint did as he was told and left the room, stomping his feet as he went.

Steve watched Maria tap at her earpiece.

She was an excellent general, but Steve wondered how anyone in her position could ever be prepared enough to deal with something like this.

He turned to stare at the screen. The world wasn’t ready for this. The people of earth were barely getting by as it was without these twelve immense…things appearing just like that, as if out of the mist.

Steve tapped the monitor himself, bringing all of the news reporters into view. By the voices and tones being set, this was not good. Not good at all.

 

* * *

 

They were ominous, dark objects, casting shadows across the continents they hovered above. Worst of all: they were silent. No demands, no creatures, nothing has exited any of the alien craft since their arrival.

It set the world on edge. Panic has driven many people out of the densely populated regions close to these ships. London has  emptied out and governments across the world have all but imploded under the demand from citizens to _do something_. The World Council was connected via video and the constituents of the E.U. were bickering and barking at one another for the _excess_ or _lack thereof_ of information shared between countries. It all depended on where their countries sat. As of right now, all twelve nations involved were on permanent conference with the top tier officials. Hill was the only senior SHIELD operative allowed in the conference room with Fury, but only because she was good at what she did and she knew where to stand so that Fury’s cameras couldn’t place her for all to see. Workarounds: SHIELD has them.

Steve was waiting with Hill in one of the Northern New York warehouses.

“So China attacked something we know nothing about and received nothing in return?” Steve said, sipping at his own drink. It was warm, creamy and sweet, something the other agents always ragged on him for. The twentieth century sugar and cream industry may be killing the planet, but it’d barely put a dent in Steve, so he’d keep sucking them back.

“Pretty much,” Hill said. She pulled on her operative jacket, zipping herself up warmly.

“Why are _we_ going?” Steve asked for the third time. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Look, Fury got his orders and we follow suit, Rogers.” Hill bent over to tighten her boots. The pistol at her hip glinted under the bright lights.

Steve looked around at all the operatives bustling about. Many were carrying boxes and crates, loading up one of the Apache helicopters. More aircraft was to follow, but for now, only a small crew would be matched with Hill and Steve.

“We’re not gonna blow them out of the sky,” Steve said gravely. “They haven’t done anything.”

“Yet,” Hill muttered. “You heard Fury. Hell, we all did. This isn’t small potatoes, Rogers. We’re moving out.”

“Ok, but why?”

“He says they’ve found their scientist. We’re going to do what you recommended.” She smirked up at him.

“What?” Steve followed her, slowing his strides to match hers. “But that’s insane.”

Hill turned to him and quirked an eyebrow. “It was your idea, Rogers.”

“Yeah, but that’s because Fury was gonna blow the ship to kingdom come, remember? We couldn’t risk pissing them off before we understand them!” Steve wasn’t a fan of brawling with monsters, no matter what the weekly Cap-Update Buzzfeed articles declared.

“Hmm,” Hill hummed and approached the helicopter. “Out,” she said to a young operative who was bent over, tying down a crate. The guy scuttled about for a moment, eyes going comically wide at the sight of six-foot-two Steve approaching. He managed to find his way off the craft and out of reach.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t try talking to them?” Hill went on.

“How are we going to do that?” Steve huffed. “We don’t know anything yet.”

“Look,” Hill turned to him. She is the general Steve wish he’d had back in the thirties. Strong, calm and intelligent. She also isn’t stubborn or set in her ways, which is something Steve admires more than he cares to admit. Stubbornness is a pretty consistent, unstoppable strain in the Rogers DNA. His ma had it, and apparently so did his grandfather. “Japan, China and Russia have set attacks against the pods, or whatever we’re calling them. And in all three instances, the aliens just backed off. They’re obviously here for something, but fighting them isn’t getting us closer to an answer. We’re gonna give it a go, Rogers. We don’t have much else left.”

Steve rubbed at his jaw.

“I guess,” he said, “And I’m going along for what? Example of a scientific anomaly gone right? Are we attempting to present earth’s scientific ethics by showcasing a relatively decent experiment done on a sentient creature? Or am I the show pony on display for my combat experience? Maybe they know me from the last spate of nazis that tried to wipe us off the map? Maybe they all wear their skulls on the outside? Maybe they’ve come for payback for the Cold War?”

Hill smiled and placed her hands on her hips. “You wish you were the scientific artifact, Rogers. Then you wouldn’t have to do any work at all.” She turned to the helicopter and patted it. “This time you’re just the muscle.”

 

* * *

 

All U.S. flights in and out of Montana were grounded. Add to that the fact airlines weren’t flying over the Dakotas, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Saskatchewan and Alberta, well, it wasn’t easy to get the SHIELD team out there in a day.

Because the team was large, they commandeered a army transport plane (courtesy of James Rhodes) into Hector Airport, unpacked everything there into transport trucks and here Steve was sitting shotgun in a huge government issue vehicle being driven by Maria Hill. Steve had helped to pack up the supplies. Some of it was standard-issue rations and firearms and habitation gear like tents and tables. However, some of the things he saw had shiny metallic domes and cables and buttons Steve had no business touching. Most of that stuff had been wrapped in blankets too, probably for safety. Whether for the items, or the soldiers, Steve wasn’t sure.

The trip should have taken twelve hours from Fargo but because of the mayhem and mass evacuations in progress, the highway was a mess. Getting through North Dakota was a bit rough but once they got closer to Montana, the inbound traffic cleared up. The outbound, however, was a disaster waiting to happen. Traffic was jammed for miles and police cruisers ran wailing up and down the lines, trying to coordinate the mess.

“Glad that’s not our job,” Maria huffed.

A twelve-hour drive became a thirty-hour drive and with small pit-stops and driver switch-overs, it really took its toll. Steve didn’t sleep. He let his team rest when they could and kept the truck going all through the night.

He had fitful daydreams when Hill took to driving part of the way. He would fade in and out, his head aching.

“You all right?” Hill asked, looking at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve rubbed at his eyes, pushing the memories down, away. It had been so long since he'd had anything akin to dreams, day or night.

Maybe he _should_ sleep more.

The transport drove onwards up, up past Denton, a small, dusty farming town, and into the wild open space that made Montana what it was.

Holy shit. He could see it.

“There it is,” Hill murmured, leaning forward in her seat to stare out the windshield.

The space ship, pod, whatever it wanted to be, was visible, floating far up, away in the distance.

The closer they got, the more Steve had to recalibrate his understanding of what ‘big’ meant.

“Wow, the shadow alone,” Hill murmured. Swathes of land were cast in the pod’s shadow and as the sun worked its way overhead, so the shadow would move over the course of a day, enveloping the green hills in darkness.

“We’re gonna have to settle real close,” Hill murmured. “See who we’ve got waiting for us.”

 

* * *

 

The media had been cleared off about a mile around the space pod. Steve had to contend with microphones in his face for only a moment before he was ushered under a strip of tape and led down the hilltop grass. They didn’t seem to recognize him at least, not with the army issue cap and sunglasses. Maybe they were just asking frantically, hoping for scraps of information, anything, really. The nation was at a standstill, after all.

The whole area around the spaceship was green and grassy, but the air was chill and he was grateful for the high-neck parka he’d pulled on last-minute.

The Captain America suit wasn’t packed because, as far as he was told, it wouldn’t be needed. For now, Steve was just a normal, high-ranking SHIELD agent.

“So I’m here to what, exactly?” he asked for the eighth time, hoping for a better response than the other seven times. Hill walked on down the gentle slope, directing her teams where to set up. The operatives were taking this very well, for some unfathomable reason. Not one of them had balked yet at the mission to come out here, or even at the massive alien aircraft floating overhead.

Hell, if that thing ever decided to fall over, it would crush a whole county and then some.

Steve looked up and tipped his sunglasses back.

The thing was fucking _huge._ It blocked out the sun and nothing came off it, not sound, not motion, not light, reflections, nothing. He squinted, watching clouds pass behind…and through it? No, he must be seeing things. The ship just stayed where it was, unbothered by the breeze.

Hill ordered her teams to stay put while she and Steve went down to what must be the basecamp.

“Right into it, huh?” Steve asked, matching her stride for stride.

“We don’t have time to mess around, Rogers,” Hill murmured. “We have to try something and this is the closest shot we’ve got.”

“What do you mean ‘closest’?”

“I mean,” she pointed her index finger ahead and Steve looked down the hill, to the very spot just below the rounded tip of the pod.

A small group of people stood around talking beside a bright orange scissor lift. It all looked surreal. There was a hum coming from somewhere close by.

A generator, right. No electricity out here. He glanced back at the SHIELD teams. Not yet anyway.

“What have you not told me, Maria?” Steve said under his breath.

“Look,” Hill halted and faced him properly. “This is classified.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve sighed loudly and tucked his sunglasses into his jacket front pocket. “What has Nick done or said now? Why’d you get me out here?”

Hill paused. She appeared to be thinking.

“Okay,” she began. “This isn’t first contact, here today,” she murmured.

Steve tilted his head.

“A couple locals were here inspecting the thing when it appeared days ago.” She glanced at the group down by the lift. “They said they saw a hatch.”

“A hatch?” Steve parroted, “In the ship?”

“Yes,” Maria nodded slowly, “We don’t know if the other ships had this and if the other leaders just panicked too soon, because we haven’t heard anything about hatches elsewhere.”

“Okay…”

“So we sent some people up.”

Steve blinked at her.

“You…made people go … _into_ the ship?” He sounded weak, incredulous.

“Made is a strong term,” Maria hummed. “Operatives _volunteered._ ”

“STRIKE?” Steve asked, brow rising slowly.

“Yep,” Maria nodded.

“Jesus Christ, so what happened?”

“Well,” Maria shrugged, “Nothing bad, yet. So we’ve been working on it.”

“So I’m here to…go into the spaceship?” Steve said, voice inching lower on every syllable.

“Ideally, yes, but that’s not _why_ you’re here. Not really.”

She turned to the group down by the alien spacecraft. A whining clicking noise had started up and Steve realized the scissor lift had been extended upwards and was not, in fact, just empty and waiting for use.

“Oh my God,” he breathed, when four sets of legs appeared, then torsos, then the rest of what made up four whole humans.

Four souls had stood on that lift and risen into the bowels of some strange goddamn creature spaceship and survived.

Steve swallowed audibly.

“So, you still with me, Rogers?” Hill poked his chest.

“Uh, yeah,” he murmured, then looked down at her. “You got me.”

 

* * *

 

“Rumlow’s been working point since the beginning,” Hill said.

The man in question pulled off the wide, plasticky orange space helmet that looked more like a shopping bag than anything protective. The wide window built into it bent and folded up in Rumlow’s big hands. The orange suit looked really uncomfortable and not really sized for humans or varying heights and weights.

“Captain,” Rumlow saluted with a massively-gloved hand.

Steve nodded back. He’d worked many ops with Rumlow already, what with his close affiliation with the STRIKE squad, so he wasn’t surprised to see Rumlow here of all places. The man was a glutton for action and war zones.

“You working security?” Steve asked.

“Yes, sir,” Rumlow said gruffly, his eyes shunting left. Rumlow hated working security, so why was he even here? Surely not just for the possibility of seeing an alien space ship up close?

Steve swivelled around and spotted the other three people who had climbed off the lift with Rumlow.

“Professor,” Maria murmured, waving the petite brunette closer. “This is Captain Steve Rogers. He will be on your detail.”

Hill looked at Steve with her sharp eyes.

“Captain, this is Dr Jane Foster, a rising star in her field of work, and someone we’re very lucky to have onboard. She is professor of Astrophysics at CalTech and knows more about space and physics than the rest of us combined.”

The woman was _tiny_ , barely coming to Steve’s chest and had a certain energy to her that made Steve smile. She was grinning so broadly and appeared to actually be shaking. Her own space hazmat suit was falling down around her slim shoulders and she had plastic pooled around her feet, like a kid in her older sister’s romper.

“Are you okay?” he murmured, shaking her small, soft hand that peeked out of one oversized sleeve.

“I–yes! I’m fine, I’m fine,” she nodded, eyes wide. “I just went up into a _spaceship!_ ” she whispered with a hint of hysteria. She grinned and clutched at Steve’s hand with both of hers. Her hair was pulled back into a smooth, low ponytail and she had an immense pair of glasses that kept sliding down her nose. “I can’t believe it! I mean, _terrifying_ , really, but how thrilling!”

She pulled her hands back and seemed to be flexing them repeatedly with exhilaration or anxiety, who knows what.

“Good to hear,” Hill said calmly, but Steve could see her mind clicking ten steps ahead. This peppy professor was going to get a talk on _note-taking_ and _data analysis_ and _levels of authority, health and safety._ Because while Nick Fury may not be here to storm about the place in a temper, Hill would do a damn fine impersonation in his place and pull any and all civilians into line, regardless of their PhDs.

Hill asked the jittery woman to take a rest, turning her towards the SHIELD setup half a mile up the slope. The woman shakily did as she was told and tottered away, babbling excitedly to herself. She kept dropping her gloves and helmet-thing. Surely that was bad contamination protocol? Steve frowned.

“Is it dangerous up there?” Should she even be here?

Steve gave Hill a _look_.

“She’s going to help,” Hill sighed.

“How?” Steve pressed back, “How’s astrophysics going to help here?” He pointed to the ship overhead. “They’re already here. It’s not theoretical anymore.”

Hill smiled, “She not _just_ an astrophysicist. She also happens to be a linguistics expert. She can speak _fifteen_ languages, Rogers. Doesn’t that eclipse your six?”

He tilted his head and counted. “Seven. Yes. Okay, yeah.”

He was about to ask why languages were even relevant, when Hill turned abruptly to face the other two people who had come down with Jane Foster and Rumlow. They approached in unison, decked out in almost identical black combat gear. Their orange plastic hazmat suits were already folded up and waiting for transport back to basecamp. The woman was petite, with a perfectly tamed red bob that hung to just above her shoulders. She moved calmly, head held high and didn’t flinch at eye contact.

 _Spy._ Definitely.

The other was a man about Steve’s height, with long, messy brown hair, black paint around his eyes and a strange black mask covering the lower half of his face. He was also carrying an assault rifle, the make of which was typically assigned to special armed forces. Steve eyed the weapon. It was very out of place here in the wilds of Montana.

Russian-made. Hm. Another spy?

The man’s eyes were pale and stared back at Steve, unflinching. Why in the seven hells was he wearing face-paint?

“Ah,” Hill stood, feet apart, hands on her hips. “Captain Rogers, meet agents Red and Winter.”

Steve blinked. _Code names? Really?_

The redhead smiled. “Captain America,” she said. “An honour. I'm sure.” Her American accent was flawless.

The other one, Winter, didn’t move.

“As I’m sure you’ve realized,” Hill eyed Steve. “Russia has asked that we allow operatives to match our own, in the process of seeking peace with the, uh, visitors.” Maria’s voice was calm and dry. Steve could read between the lines. Russia wanted in on whatever was happening here because their own spaceship mishap would disallow them access.

“So your government attacks the aliens and now what?” Steve said bluntly. He wasn’t the diplomat here. "You come running to us?"

The redhead smiled wider. “If that helps you rest at night, then sure,” she said, unruffled.

Rumlow was standing back a few feet, glaring at the two Russians.

Right. So this was why _Rumlow_ was here. He probably insisted on it, keeping an eye on the Russians, based on his own dealings with their spy-ops. He wasn't known for his subtle opinions.

“Russia is seeking to partner with America on this venture,” Hill cut in. “A sign of amenable peace talks within reach. Plus, they have admirable intel from other partners who perhaps,” Hill smiled genially, “Are not as forthcoming with their data and interactions with the pods.”

Right. Sure. Steve would believe it when he heard it. These operatives weren’t here to help. They were here to horn in and get whatever information they could. They were here to watch. Watch Hill’s team, watch the American government, and watch the damn aliens overhead. Steve caught the guy with the gun staring at him. Winter, Hill said. What a stupid codename. He took a mental note to look into both operatives. If he was going to work with them, he’d need every inch of data SHIELD had.

He turned to Hill. She would definitely parse the look in his eye. He was here as protection detail. He really was the muscle after all. Well, if Steve was needed for this and was already being met with force, then by God, he’d be giving it right back in spades.

 


	2. Chapter 2

An hour later the decontamination team was _still_ yelling at Rumlow, the one responsible for keeping an eye on the hazmat suits. Even in the chaos that was SHIELD setting up a mini-base, the techs found time to berate the soldiers for their inability to follow scientific protocol.

“You absolutely _cannot_ have anyone who’s gone up into that _thing_ come straight down without getting washed off first!” the young medic with a slavic accent, long brown hair and wild eyes barked, not even fazed by Rumlow's scowl. She was shoving Rumlow’s hazmat suit into a barrel of steaming liquid, clearly beside herself with rage. “How can we be sure there are no alien contaminants clinging to you, to the suit? How do we know now whether or not you’ve inhaled some alien super-malaria and  we’re all doomed to die? _Huh,_ agent Rumlow? Tell me!”

“Wanda, please,” A soft-voiced man came up behind her and patted her arm. The two of them wore matching khaki green uniforms, the sleeves rolled up and the pants covered in pockets. Scientists on-site, judging by the badges on their upper arms. “Agent Rumlow,” the man said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “For future events, please do follow protocol so we don’t accidentally wipe out the human race with a sneeze, okay?”

Rumlow grunted.

“Now Wanda’s going todo a full medical check-up; blood and urine samples required.” The older doctor said this with a smile and waved Rumlow along. “Dr Foster has just finished up hers, so yours should be pretty quick.”

Steve was sitting on a small fold-out chair, chewing on his third flaxseed and mega-protein chew bar. It tasted like rubber dipped in sawdust, but it filled him up. His caloric intake had dropped on the drive into Montana and it was taking its toll on his mood. Hill had shoved him into the seat when she found Steve getting cranky about his sleeping quarters, which were separate to the other agents. “You’re a captain, so you get your own stupidly uncomfortable cot and measly sized tent. Now deal with it,” Hill had said.

Steve watched as crew members dragged in the science equipment being off-loaded from a truck just outside. The base was forming right before his eyes. When they’d arrived, it had looked more like a family campsite, fire and all. As of right now, though, there were multi-corridor awnings and tents being built by a battalion of covert op agents and scientists, all of whom were sworn to secrecy between these thin walls.

First, as Hill had commanded loudly, the operations tents had to be built. The generators were being shuttled into place and no one was to get any barrack tents set up until everything was powered up and running, preferably by midday.

Steve got to his feet and shoved his bar wrapper into his pocket. He followed the path Hill had taken moments earlier, surprised once more at the efficiency of SHIELD and its workers.

There was a tented hallway where previously there had been grass. The waterproof fabric squeaked under his boots. Agents were dotted at intervals, installing poles and unrolling even more canvas, more nuts and bolts that would tie the behemoth of a base together. He spied engineers, perhaps, bent over a stack of crates, hasty architectural drawings splayed out between them.

He took a sharp right down another magically new hallway and found light.

The room at the end, if he could call it a room, was much larger than the previous one. Here, desks were lined up in rows, each holding up a trio of computer screens, a keyboard and other standard paraphernalia.

An agent sat at each desk, headset on, talking to god-knows-who like professionally paid parrots.

He passed one young woman talking in what must be Urdu. Steve frowned, paused, and listened. Every agent was speaking a different language. He picked up French, German, Dutch and perhaps Cantonese.

At the far end of the room stood Hill. She was staring up at a fresh bank of screens being adjusted by a tech. One or two of them flickered to life while the guys hoisting them muttered back and forth about signals and wires.

“Do we have wi-fi?” Steve asked, coming to stand beside her.

Hill turned, her own headset in place on her head.

“We don’t have time to play online poker, Captain,” she mused with a wry smile.

Steve shrugged, “I don’t know, I was going to check my Linkedin.”

Hill snorted, “I’m sure you were.”

Another screen flickered to life, already displaying a man’s face at some other desk, probably on some other continent, going by his closed captions.

“What’s happening here?” Steve ventured.

“We need full access to the pod sites,” Hill murmured, “so we’re making it easy. All twelve countries have agreed to broadcast information live into the same feed, that way no one feels left out.” She quirked a brow.

“Right,” Steve nodded. He turned to look at the bank of tables and wheeled chairs that were steadily filling with warm bodies in headsets. “And these guys?”

“Interpreters,” Hill said. “We want our agents taking notes on everything, so whoever’s taking point on the science side, we’ve got them talking directly to the techs in-house.”

Steve crooked a brow at that, “Really? No clearance issues?”

Hill sighed, “Rogers, we had to compromise. Two agents per country, per language, working 12 hour shifts to translate whatever comes in.”

“And to share whatever _we_ learn, yeah?” Steve added.

Hill tilted her head. “That’s what we agreed to.”

Hm. He was very familiar with the percentage of shared intel dipping on both sides of any governmental interaction. The USA wasn't exactly a paragon of intel collection and secrecy.

“You look surprised,” Hill turned to him.

Steve smiled beatifically, “I guess I’m not used to government agencies doing as they say.”

“You do know you’re employed by one,” she remarked with a grin, unperturbed by his skepticism.

Steve tilted his head not unlike her earlier gesture. The two of them smiled wanly.

 

* * *

 

It was a lot to parse. The network tent continuously blared the international news feeds from across the globe. This tent was accessible to all agents and staff under the guise of full disclosure and open, free info. In the Chief Operations tent though, it was a different story. Steve was privy to every briefing and every update, to hell with international treaties and constitutional bargaining. Being bombarded with this volume of information was taxing even for him. He wondered at times if anyone cared about the rights of the interpreters and science majors who had either signed up for this perilous duty or were 'voluntold' by their governments to step up and put out.

He kept an eye on the news feeds as best he could. The alien pods were causing devastation across every continent, it seemed. Not by causing physical harm or interacting with the people, but by simply existing in a world that wasn't prepared.

Already reports of civil unrest and destruction were pouring in from around the globe.

A church in North Carolina had dubbed this the end of times, the apocalypse, and believed the aliens were the final warning before the world would burn. In some fit of madness, or cult hysteria, the congregation took all its members’ lives. Their bodies had been found laid out within the church walls, hours after a panicked call had been made to police. It made Steve’s stomach turn.

More reports came in about looting and property damage across many major cities. People had turned to depravity and the destruction of public and personal property. Homes were being burnt to the ground, schools were empty, and panic seemed to be raining down on so many parts of the world. Steve watched as nations rioted, cities burned and families fled.

He wondered what New York looked like right now. He could probably look it up on his phone but something told him to hold back, that whatever he saw would only make his uneasiness morph into distress.

Russia was doing its damndest, it seemed, to ruin all the work they were striving for here. The Russian President had spoken at a conference about lethal options and had suggested none-too-subtly that Russia was preparing for retaliation and maybe even war. They had the power, they had the connections, and they were going to mark themselves down as one of the first nations to fight back. Steve found it ironic that war could be declared against a silent and unapproachable entity that was, as yet, not even an enemy.

The real concern was that if Russia moved in one direction, many other nations would follow, and that was not looking good for anyone. The Kremlin's many allies boasted more nuclear weaponry than any one group should handle. Even North Korea was centre-stage, declaring unity with Russia and its people. Steve contemplated the ramifications of just flying to Moscow and decking the Russian president for inciting terror. Diplomacy wasn't Steve's strong point.

Nuclear war on an alien race hardly made any sense to Steve, but then again, he wasn’t the one manning this shit-show.

 

* * *

He sat quietly beside Hill, and listened to the latest hasty briefing. So far Hill had marched in multiple different teams and had handed out particular (highly redacted) orders to them in precisely timed segments. The woman was so tightly organized, it was baffling Steve as to how she managed it all. Sometimes he wondered what her personal life was like. Did she schedule her laundry and dinner into covert ops? Hill was able to name of every agent, every scientist without falter. She hardly had to review her notes before ushering whatever team was next. He could barely keep track of everyone’s name and title before one group was shuffled out and a new one was marched in.

He glanced at his watch. It had been eight hours since he’d arrived, yet it felt like twenty days.

“Captain Rogers will be assigned to you, Doctor Foster, as personal security up there,” Hill was saying.

Jane Foster was perched on a seat at the front, her trio of interns seated around her. Steve had shaken all their hands. Two were junior linguists who _must_ be students, going by their bright-eyed, wrinkle-free faces, and the other was a mathematician who spoke so fast Steve’s head spun.

“Why do I need protection?” Foster asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. 

“It’s just protocol,” Hill murmured from the front of the room. She’d been here as long as Steve and didn’t look even remotely tired. “Any non-agent individuals participating in an event must be escorted by someone on my team. We’re still in the early stages of learning about these aliens and we still do not have all the data on what is, and what is not, safe to do or take up inside the pod.”

“Why aren’t we up there now?” One of the junior linguists piped up. Steve thought she looked very young in her brand new khaki uniform and matching hijab. He’d been watching her furiously take notes like her life depended on it.

“Ms Khan,” Hill said, “I’m glad you asked. We’re only allowed inside the ship, when the aliens deem it appropriate. They are open to talks, but we can’t be too pushy. They define the schedule.” 

There was a pause and the students glanced around at the small group gathered.

“I get that,” Ms Khan said, leaning forward, “But you didn’t answer my question, ma’am.”

Hill smiled and Steve, if he didn’t know her better, might have mistaken that smile for pained, suppressed annoyance. This kid clearly didn’t understand what the rank of _General_ meant. But Hill was more genuine than people took her for.

“My apologies,” she said, “we have a limited window in which to work. Every eighteen hours, the pod opens a hatch at its base. We then have two hours in which to engage the aliens. However,” she cleared her throat. “We have not been able to document the aliens as they have chose to only appear that first time, and have remained hidden since.”

Dr Foster nodded. “Ah, okay, yes, they weren’t there when I was up in the pod.”

The small team began babbling between themselves.

“And because of the lack of clarity," Hill said over the noise, "we will have Captain Rogers with you at all times, on every event. He will act not just as security, but as liaison to me. He gives orders in my stead.”

Steve didn’t look at the row behind him where he knew the Russians were sitting in stony silence.  They hadn’t been part of the previous briefings, not being actual SHIELD employees. They were only privy to the pod program. What the hell was Hill thinking anyway?

“Remember, we have two hours and eighteen between to try and figure out what is happening," Hill went on. "Your jobs will be to analyze everything we can gather up there. We don’t want to waste a second. So,” Hill paused and put her hands on her hips. “I will be splitting you into teams to share the workload. Agent Rumlow’s team will be packing and prepping equipment that needs to go up in the next event."  Steve’s mouth twisted. They were calling these things ‘events’ to separate them out from anything else, as if there were any other missions going on in these parts. “We’re hoping to find a way to monitor whatever interactions occur, be they visual or audible. With your expertise, Dr Foster, you may help us speed this along in some way that pleases _my_ bosses.”

“How much time do we have?” another scientist asked. "I mean, like, in the long run...?"

Everyone inherently understood what the young man meant. How long would the aliens suffer the human presence before whatever they’d come to do took effect? Days? Hours? Minutes?

“That’s why you’re here,” Hill said, voice level. “I’m hoping you’ll help us find out.”

 

* * *

“You gotta keep an eye out, Cap,” Rumlow murmured beside Steve. 

They were pulling on the ghastly bright orange hazmat suits. Steve tapped at his headset, making sure it was working. He looked at Rumlow, who had a grim set to his mouth. “The Ruskies, we can’t let them infiltrate us like this.”

Steve pinched his lips together and pulled the massively oversized hazmat helmet on. The face sock he was wearing on his head already felt way too constrictive, and the wide flimsy visor in the helmet wasn’t helping much. Now was not the time to find out he was claustrophobic.

The techs went over each person’s suit, zipping and velcro-ing them into their safety cocoons. Beside him stood  Foster, Rumlow, Agent Red and Agent Winter. That was it. These were the people Hill was entrusting with the future of planet earth. A jittery scientist, a STRIKE agent, two no-name-brand Russian agents and Captain America. What the hell? Steve would have stared at the heavens if it didn't mean he would just end up glaring at the inside of his poofy plastic helmet.

“Checking in,” Hill’s voice crackled in his ear. “Call out.” She was back at the tech tent.

“Rogers, over,” Steve said.

“Rumlow, over.”

“Red, over,” came the softer voice of the redhead who was five feet away and already fully suited up. She’d somehow made thesuit fit better by having the sleeves and legs taped up higher on her limbs. Duct tape really was a miracle product.

“Winter, over,” came the gruff response from the muzzled Russian. Steve looked up. This was the first time he’d heard the guy say _anything._ Steve had watched as medics and agents alike attempted to coerce him out of his face mask and were met with stony glares instead. Why he needed it was a question Steve hadn't felt to ask. Not even Hill had poked that bear.

They all waited.

“Foster, you have to radio in,” Hill sighed.

“Oh,” Steve watched Foster look up from where a medic was zipping her left boot. “Foster here. Um, I’m here. Over.”

Steve smiled. The crash course in radio communication might take time to sink in. Foster was the sort of person who had her mind on a million things at once, as far as Steve could tell. In all their mini briefings, the woman was the one nodding and writing and humming and asking questionsa mile a minute with no pause for time, place or authority.

Finally they were all bundled into the back of an open-top Jeep.

Steve's hazmat helmet was big enough that his breath didn’t fog up the plastic window, but it still felt very surreal breathing inside his own personal bubble. The air filtration system strapped to his back felt minuscule and hardly capable of keeping him alive. They’d talked about the possibility of carrying oxygen up with them but the danger of that versus the already proven capabilities of the hazmat suits had shot that down. Steve decided not to point out the gasoline tanks that were required to run the mini generator they planned to take up into the pod. Maybe only one type of inflammable fuel was allowed up there? The first team of agents that handled the inaugural event must have been running low on safety protocols before Hill came along and shut them down.

The Jeep trundled off, taking them away, down, down the grassland and closer to the pod. They were jostled as it rolled over dips and bumps in the unkempt field.

Steve felt Foster stiffen beside him as they got closer.

The clouds were dense, even at this time of day when it should be bright out. The massive alien pod grew larger and larger.  Steve swallowed. Every atom in his being knew this felt wrong. Whatever was inside that thing wasn’t meant to be here.

“All right,” Hill’s voice crackled. “When you get in position, agent Acre will man the lift. He will remain on the ground the entire time. Do you all remember the safety protocols?”

Everyone but Winter piped up in the positive.

“Good,” Hill said. “Now, communication gets spotty inside, but Rogers and Rumlow will be transporting the signal booster, audio and video equipment. Be careful, that stuff is delicate, but it also weighs a Goddamn ton. So if we can at least get that stuff set up, we'll be doing better than yesterday by miles. Over.”

Foster was wringing her hands beside him, her large gloves looked like rubber balls being mashed together.

Winter and Rumlow were sitting on the boxed up equipment behind them while Red sat shotgun beside Acre, a stoic asian man who saluted sharply whenever Steve entered a room.

On agent Red’s lap sat a cage with a small yellow bird inside.  The sight of the bird had set Steve on edge; A canary, of all things. Just like in the mines.

To think, he was heading towards an alien space ship with four strangers, one backup STRIKE agent and a bird. Once there, they were expected to climb up, up into the pod somehow and survive as long as they could before getting booted out. Steve shifted in his seat. 

There was another blip on this event that bothered him. He’d given Winter and Red dark looks when he saw the weapons they carried with them. Why in all hell would they need guns?

“Not necessary, per se,” Hill had answered his concerns, “but that’s pretty much what they’re here for, Rogers.”

“ _I’m_ not toting a goddamn assault rifle,” Steve had said mulishly. "We don't need weapons."

“No,” Hill nodded, “but you’re also not in a foreign country, working under the umbrella of a foreign agency with little to no say in what happens here.” She had shaken her head. “Besides, we still don’t know what the aliens can do. Safety first, science second.”

The Jeep drove onwards, rocking and creaking over the bumpy ground. This was going to change everything.

 

* * *

Steve pulled Foster onto the orange skyjack. Her hands were shaking and so were her legs.

“Are you okay to do this?” Steve said softly, knowing full well everyone else could hear on the comms. He bent low to look directly at her.

Her wide eyes blinked back. She nodded fervently inside her suit. “Yes, yes, I’m okay. Just…nervous, I guess.”

“We don’t got time for nerves,” Rumlow grunted. Steve closed the Skyjack gate and signalled to Acre. The machine was stuffed full of the equipment, making the crew members squash up together as best they could. Agent red was sitting on a crate. That really grated at Steve.

“Heading up now, over,” he said, looking straight up.

They were directly beneath the floating pod, its girth blocking out most of the dull daylight. There was indeed a hatch above them. He was skeptical, eyeing the lift. How was this orange contraption possibly going to get close enough? The scissor lift could maybe, at max, lift them thirty feet. The rectangular tunnel cut into the pod looked about twenty, twenty-five feet away. So they could possibly stand a few feet inside the entryway and then what? Steve squinted. The opening looked like a precise slab, a cut-out taken from the ship, likeone of those blue cheese triers, the kind that cheesemakers use to slice out a long tube of cheese from a wheel. The tunnel extended for ages, as far as Steve could tell. There was a light at the end, bright and white but there was no platform, no stairs, no way to climb higher. How on earth was this supposed to work? Hill had explicitly said no climbing tools were necessary, that it would make sense once they got up there, but Steve was nothing if not eternally cynical.

“Follow my lead,” Rumlow said as the lift groaned and got moving. “I go first. I’m taking the video crate. Cap, you follow with Dr Foster. Red, Winter, you can bring up the rest of the equipment.”

Steve didn’t look at the Russians to gauge their responses to that. He was pretty sure Hill's orders had him and Rumlow handling the gear, but then again, Steve was here for Foster and not a bunch of crates will with plastic bits and metal wires.

They ascended slowly, Steve’s heart beating a little harder inside his chest. The dark walls of the hole loomed closer. The four walls of the tunnel were highlighted by the distant glow of light. They seemed rough, as if hewn from stone by hand. Steve couldn't imagine anyone carving out a tunnel such as this with a chisel and hammer.

The scissor lift creaked loudly and juddered, moving them all inside the pod's entryway, inch by inch. Foster looked over the edge of the lift, staring back down at the green grass and agent Acre below.

She looked up.

The lift came to a halt, shaking a little. “All right, let’s move,” Rumlow said, unlocking the lift’s little gate and moving closer to one wall of the tunnel. 

Steve wanted to ask _how? Move how?_

He watched as Rumlow leaned one arm out and pressed his hand to the wall.  “The way this goes,” Rumlow said through the comm, “is you gotta jump, and get ready to land on here.” He tapped the wall. That still made no damn sense to Steve. Land on the wall?

“The gravity shifts, so be careful,” Rumlow grunted, shifting the first crate in his left arm.

And then, he did something weird. Rumlow just sort of leapt upwards and twisted back, as if to lean away from the wall. His slight movement shunted him further than Steve would have expected and then… and then…

Steve gaped. Rumlow was _standing_ on the wall, perpendicular to the rest of them.

“What the hell?” Steve breathed out, heart thundering.

“C’mon, champ,” Red patted at his shoulder, her arms full of the birdcage. “You gotta do the heavy lifting, remember?”

Steve blinked, his voice caught in his throat. Rumlow was…walking up? The wall?

Foster jostled Steve as she squeezed past. She’s done this already. Right. They all had, except Steve.

“Oh God,” he breathed out shakily as she jumped, her body shifting, feet moving up, up, until she stumbled and tripped over the rough wall...floor? She made a slight  _whoops_ sound as if this was no different to tripping on the sidewalk. Steve stared, his brain trying desperately to understand. Foster righted herself and stood up, turning to look at him.

“Go,” Winter’s deep voice said in his ear. Steve felt a hand at his back, pushing. Steve turned and scowled but the effect was minimized by his stupid bubble suit. 

The man just stared back, impassive.

Steve sucked in a breath and followed Foster. He jumped, hands going to the wall automatically. He didn’t know how to manage this, should he walk along with his fingers? Would he float? As he got close, his insides wobbled, twisted, and his centre rearranged itself. “Jesus Christ,” he gasped, feeling his equilibrium rotate and flip him up, facing the light at the end of the tunnel.

His feet hit the wall, the ground, and he caught himself before he could tumble, thinking he would just fall back to earth. He panted heavy in his own ears, bent at the hips, trying not to freak out.

He was fine. It was fine.

He stood up shakily, feeling the sweat gathering behind his ears. God help him, this was so weird.

He turned slowly and looked behind him. Agent Red was prepping her own jump. Steve swallowed. He was staring _down_ at her and Winter. From above. The grass was even further below them, but he was standing up and they were standing on the lift? He closed his eyes.

“Hey,” A hand patted at his arm.

Steve opened his eyes. Foster was there in her own bubble nightmare suit. “It’s okay,” she smiled. “It’s so scary, right? I almost puked the minute I got up here the first time.”

Steve was sweating and he couldn’t even wipe his damn face.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just need a second.” 

Foster smiled. “It’s so wild! Crazy to have a gravity shift like this inside our _own_ atmosphere. How insane! They must have adapted this entry specifically for us, you know? They must know how we walk, how our gravity affects us,” she went on. “Amazing, amazing.”

Her eyes were bright and wide and Steve couldn’t help his own small smile. 

Agent Red walked past him, the canary cage in her arms.

“Hey, Cap,” Rumlow said, reappearing. “We gotta shift the gear.”

Rumlow must have dropped off his first crate already. They turned to the lift to see Winter hoisting a much larger crate up.

“We got this,” Rumlow brushed past Steve, anger apparent in his voice. “Hey! That shit’s delicate.”

Winter, from what Steve could see on his face, seemed unperturbed. He  heaved crates upward and Steve caught them, surprised at the weight of one, stepping back at the odd gravitational shift. Winter had tossed it like it was nothing. Maybe the gravity was completely upside-down in here?

They moved the equipment higher into the tunnel. It was a good walk, steady.  Steve approached the glowing white at the end of the tunnel.  He gently put the crate down and stood tall, placing a hand on each hip.

Foster had approached the light. Steve wondered if her curiosity would ever get the better of her.

She turned when he came closer.   “It’s a barrier,” she said, “between us and them. Probably our atmosphere and theirs, actually.” She pressed her hand against it. Her hand was halted by something invisible. "See?"

The wall of light was immense, like a window cut into the sun. It was wide, about fifty feet across and twenty feet high.

“The…aliens are on the other side?” Steve asked, taking a step back. He kept walking back, back, until the whole window was in view, lighting up everything they’d brought with them.  Rumlow was unpacking while Winter brought in the last crate, settling it beside the canary cage perched on a box beside Red.

“This is insane,” Steve whispered, feeling a tightness in his lungs. 

The comm in his ears crackled.  “Rogers?” came Hill’s voice before it cut out. “–anything?” was all he heard before Foster stepped back hastily, bumping into him.

“Something moved,” she gasped.

The light was shifting, like there was a white fog, a mist on the other side of the window. Steve wondered what world these aliens had come from and why they hid themselves. How many were inside this pod? What room were they standing in and why?

“Oh my God,” Red’s voice filtered in through the comm. She was standing, cage forgotten.  Winter came into Steve’s left periphery, rifle at the ready.

“Guns down,” Steve hissed. The ground they stood on began to shudder. “No weapons!” Steve said louder.  Winter glanced at him, then lowered his gun, holding it against his chest instead.

“Oh…oh…” Foster bumped into Steve’s side. They all stared at the window.

The ground rumbled, a sound made physical, and Steve could feel it in his very body, the way the decibels rose. This noise…it was inhuman, like a million foghorns rising in crescendo; As if every voice on earth cried out in horror.

“Fuck,” Rumlow muttered from somewhere behind Steve. “Rumlow reporting, the aliens, they’re–” his words were lost in the resounding boom of noise and vibration that came forth. Foster grabbed onto Steve’s elbow and held on tight as they stumbled back, ears ringing. Steve blinked, his senses getting muddled in the noise.

Both Red and Winter stayed where they were, at the ready.

“Jesus,” Steve swallowed, eyes widening. “Is that–”

Inside the mist, something moved. Something big.

Foster held on tighter. 

“What the fuck is that?” Rumlow yelled, trying to be heard.

And then, they appeared.

Two terrifyingly massive creatures stepped out of the mist, making it clear where the reverberating sound was coming from.

There were two, Steve was sure, but they had many limbs. 

Dark, almost black, and faceless, they stood much taller than the Event Team, their bodies disappearing higher into the clouds of fog around and above them. They moved closer, the sounds getting louder, too loud. Steve winced. It felt like his eardrums and brain were being rattled inside his skull like loose dice in a wooden barrel.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Foster whispered. She sounded terrified.

The creatures came to a stop just beyond the window. Steve stared up at them, his eyes wide, his heart thundering behind his ribs like a jackhammer. Foster's hands clung to him, digging in.

They hadn’t expected to see the aliens. This was just a quick setup and exploratory trip inside the pod. They weren't prepared..

The aliens were immense, tall and long. The way they moved…it was unlike anything Steve had ever seen. The one on the left came closer and boomed out a sound that made everyone gasp.

"Jesus!" Rumlow gasped.

“It’s talking,” Foster said, once the sound had fallen to a low din. “Look, it’s moving!”

She let go of Steve and took a step closer. He could see she was terrified, shaking in her boots, but she kept taking small steps forward, slowly, slowly.

The comms crackled and Steve winced.

The creatures seemed to be made up of many legs, tentacle-like, but sturdy like tree-trunks. He kept looking for eyes, for a face, but found nothing but rough, textured…skin, and bone-like bumps around what could feasibly be compared to a cuttlefish head, if the things even had heads in the typical sense.

Foster wobbled where she stood, a foot in front of Steve. S he was about a second away from fainting.  He stepped up to her and put a hand on each shoulder.

“What do you see?” he asked, hoping the communication would get through. The comms might have been damaged.

“Giant aliens!” she cried out. “And they’re talking!”

The alien on the right shifted, causing Red to hold up her own rifle.

“Do not fire!” Steve barked.

She held her position but didn’t shoot.  Steve inhaled short breaths and looked up at the aliens again.  The one on the right boomed at them, making Steve stiffen.

“What do they want?” came Rumlow’s voice in Steve’s ear.

Steve had no idea. Why would he? He wasn't prepared or familiar with anything like this. This was beyond all his known faculties.

Then, as quickly as they’d come, the aliens turned and disappeared back into the mist.

Their sounds went with them and a moment went by before Steve realized he wasn’t actually deaf, it was just that no one was talking. The silence was devastating.

“Are you okay, can everyone hear me?” He looked around at the crew. He turned Foster about to face him. Her eyes were so wide and so wet. “Dr Foster?”

“I’m–I’m okay,” she gasped out. “That was terrifying.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Steve smiled. “Come on, take a seat.”

The comm crackled and popped in his ear. “Rumlow,” Steve turned to the agent. “You think we got enough time to set up before getting out?”

Rumlow’s chest was heaving, his own gun out, but lax against his hip. “Uh, yeah, Cap. We got time.”

Steve turned and waved at the Russians. “You two come help. We get this stuff up and running and we’ll know the comms work with base. Then I say,” he huffed out a shaky breath, “we get outta here.”

“Roger that,” Red came forward and grabbed the crowbar taped to the top of one crate. “Audio setup is my specialty.” She said something in Russian to Winter, and the man nodded quickly, switching out his rifle for two free hands.

 

* * *

 

Within twenty minutes the cameras were set up, the audio mics and radio transmitter were up and running and the small generator was fuelled and ready to roll.

“Rogers reporting in,” Steve said, tapping his earpiece.

“Hill receiving,” came a familiar voice. “What the hell happened, Rogers?”

“We, uh,” Steve breathed slowly, deliberately as he looked around at the other four members of this team. “We met our alien friends, I guess.”

Hill was silent for a moment.  “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

“Uh,” Steve looked at Foster, who was sitting on a crate, facing away from the window of light. “We’re, uh, okay. But calling it a day.”

“Roger that,” Hill said. “Get Acre to start up the lift. How did setup go?”

“Well, uh, Audio is on, so your team can try connecting now. Video is hardwired, switched on, and whatever else that means, but we, uh, I don’t think we got time to test that right now. Foster needs a rest and we’re all a bit shaken.”  Winter and Rumlow glared at him from inside their bubble suits. Steve rolled his eyes.

If it was up to Hill, they’d be here the full two hours.  “All right, wrap it up then. We’ll have debriefings once you're out of decontamination, then bedtime. Hill out.”

Steve’s shoulders relaxed. He went to gather up Foster.

“I got Mister Yellow,” Red said, coming up to them.

Steve glanced at her only to find her holding the damn birdcage again. The canary was hopping around on its little perch, seemingly unbothered. Huh. Strange.

“You named it?” Steve sighed.

She shrugged. “Why not? Gotta give him a name. He’s part of the crew, you know.”

Steve eyed her as she walked past, Winter following suit.  He’d have to keep an eye on that one.

 

* * *

Coming back to earth was harder than Steve had expected. He held on tight as the Jeep trundled them back to base, feeling queasy as all hell the entire way. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. Was it the protein bar? probably. Was that enough to puke up?

All through the decontamination process, he kept it together, answering questions and getting poked and prodded by medics. Foster was pale and sweating so much they had her remain in medical while Steve, Rumlow, Red and Winter went to report in with Hill.

After that trying debrief, Steve stumbled back to his own tent, which wasn’t much larger than a pup tent if he was honest, but it was on the far edge of the encampment, so quieter than the inner workings of the base.

He should get some rest. He needed rest.

But he felt sick and uneasy. Maybe the gravity was fucking him up, maybe the air filter on his suit was broken? He fell into his cot, fully intent on just resting a moment before it was lights out.

 

* * *

 

> _I would draw things all the time, especially if you were there to make fun of me. You said I should write a book, then illustrate it. A book for kids, you insisted. You always stuck my doodles on the fridge with those stupid-ugly big magnets you got at the dollar store._
> 
> _You kept all my doodles, I found out. The fridge was your favourite spot, but you had a way of pulling my scraps from the trash and pressing them flat and storing them in a big box under the bed._
> 
> _I remember you pointing to one drawing on the fridge, your favourite, and laughing that beautiful laugh of yours. You said I could call my book the ‘Art of the Future’ what with it being so hideous and bizarro-looking, as if only the weirdoes in the art world could appreciate it. You always laughed at your own jokes, like you were the damned funniest person on earth. I wouldn't disagree, especially if you laughed like that forever._

 

* * *

 

Steve jolted awake. He shifted, moved too quickly on his tiny cot, then fell off like a graceless giraffe.

“Shit,” he huffed into the plastic sheeting. He got up onto his elbows, head hanging between his shoulders. _Fuck._

He wiped at his face, feeling wetness there. He shakily got to his knees. How long had he been asleep? He looked at his watch. Barely half an hour. He sat on his haunches in the cramped space, feeling penned in again.

Maybe he should get some air, something to eat? God, he hadn’t even eaten after the debrief. He stumbled out of his tent, aware that he was still in his work gear; hadn’t put on his sleep clothes, just face-planted into a death sleep.

The base was still bustling, but night was upon them. He headed to the mess hall, an unfortunate-looking room with a hastily set up kitchen. He walked the length of the food offerings and felt his stomach turn at the sight of wobbly scrambled eggs and grey-looking meat.

“Fuck,” he panted and turned about, heading for the nearest bathroom. His stomach roiled. The facilities weren’t great on base, but warm water was warm water. He entered the large bathroom substitute on the western end of the base. Thankfully it was empty. He was eternally grateful that SHIELD's operational budget was large enough that port-o-potties weren't the default bathroom option.

He approached a sink, one of the water tank types, and splashed his face with lukewarm water. He gasped and his grip on the sink was a bit tight. His reflection stared back, pale and sweating at the temples.

A sound in one of the stalls drew him out of his head. Oh, someone was being sick.

 _Ugh,_ that wasn’t helping his current state.

Steve could feel it coming on and pushed his way into an empty stall before falling clumsily to his knees.

Rumlow had barfed when they made it to medical, and Steve thought Foster might have as well, going by her complexion.

Shit.

He emptied out his stomach, retching at the sensation he hadn’t felt in _years_ , not since he was a hundred pounds and all knees and elbows.

He wheezed, breaths dry and rough in his chest. He flushed the toilet, wiping at his mouth with some paper. He wiped at his face, his brow. Jesus, what was happening?

He got up, shaking, feeling weak in the knees. Why the hell was his body rebelling? It didn’t feel like an illness or food poisoning, not quite. More like vertigo, as if the world was spinning and he was stuck, glued to the floor.

When he turned back to the sinks, someone was there, leaning over a rushing tap.

Steve paused, breathing slow, trying to compose himself. The man’s long hair covered his face as he bent to wash at his skin.

Steve moved closer. The other man stood up and caught Steve’s gaze in the small mirror above the sink.

Steve froze.

The man was covered in sweat, appeared wan and looked a little ill. He had pale blue eyes, a lightly stubbled jaw and sharp cheekbones.

Steve frowned, the incongruence of the provided information warred in his head.

“You’re…” he breathed out. Then he remembered where they were and what he’d heard in the other stall. “Are you okay?”

Agent Winter stared at him, looking sickly and not at all impressed to be found like this.

“I mean, I also puked,” Steve walked closer. “Don’t…know why, exactly. Uh, but if you’re not okay…” He was gonna say something about medical, about nurses, but got distracted by the hard look in Winter’s eyes.

The man turned, water still caught in the hairs along his chin. Steve swallowed. The guy was ... handsome. Objectively handsome in a way that made Steve inhale sharply. Winter glared at him. “You got sick?” he said in clear, unaccented English.

Holy crap, where did these Russians learn their languages? “Yeah,” Steve deflated, “guess so.” He came over to a sink and washed his hands. “Delayed reaction, I think.”

Winter nodded jerkily.

“Um, your face mask,” Steve made a gesture, covering his own face with a hand.

The man ignored Steve, patting his wet hands on his black shirt. It was one of the under-suits from the regulation wardrobe. Form-fitting but comfortable.

Steve swallowed, feeling the sense of vertigo coming on again.

“You slept already?” he asked, overlooking the obvious question dodge. Hell, he didn’t even know where the Russians _were_ sleeping.

The man shook his head. “Headache,” he said, voice rough.

“Ah, okay,” Steve shifted on his feet. He wanted to ask more questions, poke more holes in the guy, but then a junior agent came into the washroom.

“Oh, Captain Ameri–I mean, uh, Captain Rogers, sir,” the kid saluted Steve in a goddamn military washroom. Steve hung his head in despair.

Winter took his opportunity and turned and walked out, just like that. Steve wiped at his face and made the minimal amount of smalltalk required to get the agent out of his way before washing up and heading back to his own cot to stare into the nothingness around him.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve didn’t sleep much better.

He tossed and turned until the alarm built into his phone chirped at him. He could hear everyone else in the base moving around, talking, breathing. It was like living in a beehive. How was he even expected to sleep anyway? He’d gotten by on fumes before; This wasn’t the worst thing he'd endured.

So he gathered himself up, managed a hasty shower in the men’s washroom and used a standard-issue electric, battery-operated razor to trim his burgeoning whiskers. He did this half suited up just outside his pup tent, staring into the Montana hillside while seated on a plastic shipping crate. Hill, upon finding him there, lost in thought, said he reminded her of the Marlboro man (whoever the hell that was).

The first real sit-down discussion with the Event Team involved them giving full recounts of what happened when the aliens made contact.

Steve, being the only apparent artist in the group, tried to draw what he could remember.  Techs whisked his scratched doodles off and away, probably to be scanned and dissected and saved to some top-secret folder in some top-secret database. In his head Steve still imagined an ancient metal file cabinet, but his drawings would probably become a digital asset, forever intangible and far too easy to lose.

“So it’s important, from now on, that we make sure the video and audio feeds are running effectively,” Hill walked slowly along the line of Steve, Rumlow, Winter, Red and Dr. Foster, who were all seated in folding chairs at the front of the empty meeting room.

Director Fury was on the screen behind her, watching through whatever camera he needed. Steve hadn't yet pinpointed its origin. He suspected the screen itself had a camera built into its frame. Goddamn, the twenty-first century was making him paranoid.

“We’re going to be curating what comes outta there,” Fury said, face stern. “World leaders need the right information, _not all of it._ ”

“Roger that,” Rumlow grunted, folding his arms across his chest and spreading his legs. “Fuckin’ nightmare fuel if you ask me.”

Hill didn’t respond to that.

Steve had remained passive throughout the meeting. His firstconcern had lain with Dr. Foster. She looked better today, had more colour in her cheeks, but he wondered how bad it had gotten for her if his own serumed body hadn’t responded kindly to whatever they’d been through.

Hill explained away their sickness and disrupted sleep, saying it was congruent with normal adrenaline spikes and just a sensible, mortal fear of something humans were never meant to see. The human body knows only so much after all and can only compute processes at a reasonable pace. All the extra input data was taxing.

Steve’s second point of interest lay with Agent Winter.  When the Russian agent had shown up in the mess hall a few hours ago, Steve had paused, bacon strips halfway to his mouth.

The agent wasn’t wearing his mask.

It freaked out the entire contingent of SHIELD operatives having their breakfast, though. Winter sat apart, at the far end of the mess, his tray piled up with every food item available, it seemed. Steve winced, spotting one of the kitchen’s notorious ‘scones’ that were more akin to asphalt than baked bread.

Agent Red followed Winter in for breakfast, her face a little tighter than Steve was used to. He hadn’t heard of her being sick too. Maybe she hadn’t thrown up her guts? Maybe she really was as tough as she put across? Steve wasn’t about to ask. Where were they even sleeping? Were they slotted in with the rest of the agents somewhere? That would definitely rankle the troops.

He didn’t exactly have the opportunity to converse with either of the Russians because once his plate was clear, a junior agent appeared out of nowhere and whisked Steve off into meetings and check-ins and updates with SHIELD higher-ups until he would swear his clearance level had jumped two spots overnight.

He was now one of only seven individuals to have ever seen the aliens in person. Historically, a feat in itself.  In the current briefing, Steve sat straight and paid attention. They had twelve hours before the next event and this time they were going to be ready.

Fury droned on about making sure video was clear and crisp and _usable;_  That it was workable and the techs outside the pod would be able to capture every nuance, every visual, every sound. Fury wanted to hear heartbeats if he could.

Foster was probably half asleep by now. This action-report business was pretty hard for her to care about, even though Hill tried to drive it home like scientific analysis and research-gathering.  Steve was thirty-percent sure that Foster wasn’t the tidiest, or even most organized of the scientists on this base. She was too busy thinking ten steps ahead, behind and to the left of everyone else. Maybe that's why she had insisted on bringing her students with her?

And then there was Agent Winter. Hill hadn’t commented on Winter’s lack of mask. She had barely paused when the Russians appeared and slipped into seats beside the rest of them.

Steve, curious now, leaned back in his chair and glanced to the left, past Rumlow, who was slouched pretty far down.

Winter was staring straight ahead, hair an uncombed mess, brow furrowed.

He also had his arms folded, bunched up, tense.

“Captain Rogers.”

Steve jolted and looked forward, remembering that Fury and Hill could see him.

“Are you done daydreaming, or do you perhaps have any tactical input, considering you are the lead operative on this damn shit-show?” Fury growled through the microphone, his oversized face glaring at Steve.

“Sorry, sir,” Steve nodded, and sat forward. He began knocking out his plan moving forward, his excellent memory pulling out the list of changes and comments he’d logged on the first event.

Hill eyed him as she paced slowly.

 

* * *

Steve had to sit through another meeting, only this time with Foster’s…juniors.

Kamala, clearly the youngest, was the most talkative. 

“Are you going to try throwing out base languages first?” she babbled excitedly. The young trio sat in chairs facing Foster, who sat with her back to the wall of the smaller briefing room. This one had a couple computers set up for the scientists, linguists, whoever. They wouldn’t be working in here necessarily, but it was a backup option if all the translator desks filled up.

Steve was in the row behind the kids, just listening. Rumlow chose to sit this one out citing ‘dweeb shit ain’t for me’ and Agent Winter was nowhere to be seen. Agent Red sat two seats over from Steve, one ankle resting on a knee, engrossed.

Steve noticed that neither of the Russians appeared to have cellphones. Very odd, but understandable, when looking at them as interference agents from Russia. Maybe it was part of the agreement to limit talk with the outside? Keep them in the game without sharing too much?

“I thought so at first,” Foster said. “But that might be jumping the gun a little. If we go in with Latin, Greek or Chinese, we’re probably aiming too high and then wasting time figuring out why. We have to remember that these aliens, whatever they are, we can’t assume they know anything about us, least of all our language.”

“Well, they know _something_ ,” the young mathematician said. Andy, if Steve recalled correctly. “Why else come here?”

“Well, it’s not our job to understand the minutiae,” Foster went on. “It’s our job to create a way to communicate with them, whatever that medium may be. No one else is trying, you see? And communication will always be the key to understanding. Without understanding, we have no motive for any future moves.” She looked at her students. “What do you all recommend we go in with?”

“Well,” the other student, Sasha, said, flipping through a notepad. “If we’re assuming they can see, like, they have eyes, or someth–”

“We don’t assume anything,” Foster reiterated gently.

Sasha paused, thinking, “Okay, so we don’t know if they can see. Can they hear? Can they touch? Do we know that?”

“Holy crap,” Andy murmured, scratching his head. “The improbability of that is suddenly very high. Has this ever happened?”

“Hey, shush,” Kamala said, “Let her think.”

Sasha must be making a face or else Foster wouldn’t be smiling at her like that.

“Okay,” Sasha said slowly, “So if they _can’t_ see, then written language is out. We gotta determine if they can see and hear us like we do?”

“But…” Foster said.

“But…” Sasha trailed off.

“We know they saw you up there,” Kamala said. “Right? I mean, they had to?”

“Or they heard you,” Andy added.

“Damnit!” Kamala hissed. “We are never gonna figure out step one if we don’t even know what we’re working with.”

“Okay, let me help,” Foster said. Steve smiled. She had this energy, like a mother. Soothing and reassuring.  “We don’t know what to begin with, so we go in with everything. Now tell me what ‘everything’ would be.”

“Oh!” Sasha piped up. “Visuals. We go in with logograms. Simple things, like apple, or bird. We determine if they understand what we’re drawing. So that would include syllabograms, maybe?”

“Followed by the phonemes,” Kamala added, scribbling in her book.”Follow any images with its paired sound.” She paused, then looked up. “Maybe they don’t see colour? So we take all colours in, and black and white, uh, markers.”

"Sounds," Andy piped up. "We can take in instruments? Morse code! Maybe the 'see' with sound?  Maybe they see in another spectrum?” Andy added. He sounded awestruck. “Like ultraviolet? Or sonar? Maybe with texture...oh, but the window is there...”

“Maybe interpretive dance?” Sasha said.

Red snorted and Steve looked over. She was definitely amused. Steve had no idea what half the terms the kids were spouting meant.

“Maybe,” Foster nodded. “As we know, body language is a communicative device in and of itself. Sign language, for example.”

“Oh, like the way cuttlefish communicate!” Sasha cried. “They make themselves into shapes, and use colour as well to mask their intentions.”

“Or body language in the way we talk to each other right now. We have hands, and facial expressions, don’t forget that,” Foster murmured. “We speak in many tongues. Maybe they can only handle one, and maybe they have more advanced ones?”

“Are we gonna try to build an alphabet out of what we can get?” Kamala asked. “Are we building a new language?”

“Holy shit, that would be awesome,” Andy added. “We’d go down in history.”

“Well, _we_ would,” Kamala snorted. “You’re doing the math stuff, remember?”

“Whoa, slow down,” Foster laughed. “Maybe. But it’s important we don’t forget the basics on language here. Structure first and foremost. Phonetics, semantics, sociolinguistics, lexicography and all of that comes later. We start with a grain of sand,” she looked around at her trio of wide-eyed kids. “And we build a beach.” She smiled. “And then we welcome the waves to our beach and create a way for both the ocean and land to come together.”

“You know I do numbers, equations and formulae, right?” Andy said, and they all laughed uneasily.

“That’s your language, Andy,” Foster chuckled. “Just as valid.”

Sure, they could gasp and poke at the joys of linguistics forever and a day, but the reality was that everything was at stake, so getting it right, getting it clear as quickly as possible was the true goal out of all of this.

Steve wondered how these kids would handle the pressure come crunch time.

 

* * *

Steve entered the mess hall for the second time that day. They had four hours left until the next event and he was ravenous once more.

He grabbed a tray, nodding at one of the cooks behind the glass spatter-shield. He pointed at the food he wanted and waited patiently for the man to pile it onto a plate. Steve followed that plate up with another, nudging it over the countertop. The cook paused, then continued, probably realizing that Captain America could eat as many damn lamb chops as he wanted. Steve had to eat regularly. He could certainly hold off for longer than the average person but the truth was: if he didn’t maintain his caloric needs, he became a wretch to work with. Barton had had the pleasure on an op once and vowed to always have protein bars on hand, in pockets and quivers, for all future jaunts into enemy territory. “I am never, ever going to go through Steve’s bitchy commentary on my life choices ever again,” he’d said.

With two trays overloaded with meat, veg, pastries and a bottle of water, Steve turned to face the mess hall.

It was quiet at this time of day, only a handful of agents scattered around, most of them staring at their cellphones. Thankfully the mess was open 24 hours due to the constant shift changes in all operative divisions, so Steve could eat whenever he had a spare second and not be judged because it was 4am and 'normal people' eat in the daylight hours.

He paused, thinking the table closest to the door would do, when he spotted a familiar mop of brown hair bent over a tray of food.  He considered his options, then bit down on his asocial tendencies and walked over to the table in the far corner where Agent Winter sat alone. Why he was doing this made zero sense to Steve. It’s not like he needed a table companion, or a reason to engage the Russian. 

Steve slid his trays onto the table and plopped into the bench seat opposite the other man.

Agent Winter looked up. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.

He was mid-chew.

Steve cocked his eyebrows in hello and breathed out, grateful to be sitting in front of a meal.  “Hey,” he murmured, picking up his fork. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Winter watched him settle for a second, then looked over Steve’s two piles of food.  He grunted and went back to eating.

And he _could_ eat in public because, Steve realized again, he wasn’t wearing that strange face mask anymore, nor the black face paint. Steve had overhead Rumlow’s operatives joking around on the first day, saying things about how Winter and Red must be eatingcabbage out in the woods, hidden away from the _Americans._ They must not eat with the STRIKE team, then. Steve didn't think they'd be welcome.

Steve got stuck into his own food, not endeared to the room-temperature meat, but hungry enough that it didn’t deter him.

He and Winter ate in silence. Steve was impressed by the hoovering going on across from him. The Russian could put it away, apparently. Four chops, a pile of roasted potatoes and a handful of green beans disappeared in moments, followed by roasted peppers, pumpkin and cauliflower, a jug of orange juice and a scone that was probably tough enough to shatter bulletproof glass. Steve watched the man chew through it, like it wasn’t cracking all of his teeth on the way in.

“You want gravy for that?” Steve muttered around a mouthful. He pointed to the juices left from the chops on his first plate, which was now mercifully empty. Winter looked at him, chewed slower, then shook his head.

Steve shrugged and continued on through his own mission of eating his weight in protein. His head already felt clearer.

They sat like that for a chunk of time, not speaking. No one bothered them, either because it was Cap, one of the Russian operatives, or perhaps a combination of both.

Steve pondered at how strange it still looked, hiring on two foreign agents to work on a project like this. The more he thought about it, the weirder it seemed. Hill had very little classified information to share, but it sat ill with Steve. Something was missing, something important. He was probably more surprised by the Kremlin handing over two agents to SHIELD than Fury accepting such candidates for this operation. Sure, Steve was heading up the movements and logistics for the small team, and working protection for Foster, but anyone could ostensibly be doing this gig. Captain America, two Russians and a bunch of aliens. There had to be more to this than just two nations shaking hands while trying to peek over one another’s shoulders.

Winter got up and took his tray of empty plates away. Steve blinked, figured that was it, at least he hadn’t had to sit alone, or with a gaggle of wide-eyed recruits asking him regurgitated questions about WWII.

He jumped when a fresh bottle of orange juice was slammed down beside him. He looked up as Winter sat back down again, his own orange juice in hand. 

“Drink,” he muttered. “Vitamin C.”

He pronounced it vit-a-min as opposed to the American way, perhaps a peek into the language training both he and Red must have gone through. 

“Uh, thanks,” Steve said, wiping at his mouth with a flimsy paper napkin. He opened up the juice and took a swig.  He actually really enjoyed the sharp taste. It wasn’t the overly-sweetened kind of juice he found in-store. 

Steve cleared his throat. Winter gulped back the last of his own juice before crumpling the bottle easily in his fist. He was still wearing gloves, Steve noticed. They were not SHIELD-issue. What was with this guy?

Steve looked up and found Winter staring at him. He had these sharp, sort of piercing eyes, but adisinterested look in them.

“You’re not wearing your mask,” Steve blurted, holding a hand up to his own face to emphasize the meaning. Like the guy wouldn’t understand him. He felt he was being repetitive.

Winter blinked, looked away, around the room, then back to Steve warily.  “Don’t have to,” he said, voice dark and gravelly. He looked at Steve unwaveringly, then shrugged. “You saw my face. No point anymore.”

Steve frowned. How would him sighting the guy’s face have any impact on his secretive uniform choices? Surely he didn’t think Steve went on to HQ and relayed whatever he saw? It wasn’t really important, after all. Just a face. Was the guy maybe trying to hide? From what?

“You ask too many questions,” Winter said, and stood.

“What?” Steve blinked, “I didn’t ask anything?” Had he?

“I mean, in general.” 

Winter looked past Steve’s shoulder. Steve twisted and found Agent Red approaching, her face flat.

“Captain,” she said, nodding down at Steve once she reached their table. He didn’t miss the way her eyes skipped between the orange juices. “General Hill wants us to prep for the event.” She then looked at Winter and said something in Russian, the words quick and brittle.

Winter blinked slowly, then nodded. He said something back and Steve _just_ caught the scowl before she wiped it off her features.

“Captain,” she looked at him again. “We’ll see you at mission prep,” Steve nodded and watched the two Russians leave, Winter dropping his crumpled juice bottle in the trash barrel by the door.

 

* * *

The second event was upon them.

This time, Steve knew what to expect and so the ride in the Jeep wasn’t as anxious. They had more equipment crates with them and explicit instructions on how to proceed differently.

“Please ensure she’s able to do this,” Hill had said just before they’d left. She’d taken Steve aside so as not to be overheard.

“Who? Foster?” 

Hill nodded. “She’s really important, Rogers. That woman has the linguistics power of a cannon. I’m genuinely interested to see what she comes up with, but we can’t account for her…” Hill dug around for the word. “frailty.”

“She’s not weak,” Steve murmured. “She’s gentle. That’s different.”

Hill sighed, “Which is why I’m asking you to pay attention to her. Rumlow and the others may be muscle just like you, but you’re assigned to her. They’re not. They have separate missions. Your priority is to make sure she doesn’t crack. This is a lot to process and we need her to remain capable and she needs to follow procedure.”

Steve nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. He would love to know exactly what the others’ missions were, really. He’d figure the Russians were easy: liaise between American and Russian authorities on movements being carried out here. _Bring a face of teamwork to covert ops_ , he could see the PR teams typing that up.

Rumlow was just backup as far as Steve could tell, but he’d be way more invested in watching for dangerous aliens and protecting American tech than keeping an eye on Foster, the tiny female linguist. Steve trusted Hill and Fury, up to a point, but sometimes it was hard to work within his confined career when he didn’t have all the data. He was patient, though.

The world was burning up around them, people freaking out about how aliens appearing meant that all rules, all social guides were useless and unnecessary. It was why countries like India and Italy were falling to pure and utter chaos. The Vatican had spoken out, decrying the aliens as evil, as trespassers upon God’s green earth, while most of South-East Asia was enlightened by this, that the new era was upon them all, that the gods had finally made themselves known and that this century was perhaps the last for this mortal timeline.

God, humans were so fickle, so tempestuous, it was no wonder Captain America was tied to watching a tiny woman talk to aliens as his new day job. He shouldn’t be surprised, not really.

“Last thing we need is Foster fucking up with the visitors, saying something not sanctioned by HQ.” Hill went on. “She’s not an operative, so the pressure’s on to make sure she aligns with our goals here.”

“And what, exactly, are our goals?” Steve had asked.

“Sure, pretend you’re dumb, Rogers,” Hill had rolled her eyes, “But you know what’s at stake. Make sure she gets it too. And if she doesn’t, you cover for her.”

 

* * *

 

The Jeep trundled down towards the black pod. Steve watched Foster, who sat across from him. He had assigned seating to everyone and expected them to follow through from now on on his every order. She was looking over her notepad, mouth moving as she read.

Hill had a point. Maybe that’s why Steve was here and she wasn’t. He was built tougher, stronger, could maybe protect Foster better. But also: maybe he was just a shade outside of authority and would do what was right, regardless of the government’s orders. Steve was never too sure with Maria Hill. Hell, he was never sure about SHIELD half the time. Trust was an edifice to climb as far as Steve was concerned. Very few people could reach the summit and look at the world with an unobstructed view because they had everyone around them as a support.

Agent Winter and Rumlow sat in the back of the Jeep with the crates of supplies. Steve had insisted that they try bringing food and water into the pod, to try offset the queasiness and anxiety. The medical team and science techs had balked at this. He’d responded about astronauts and their ability to survive in outer space on fuckin’ liquid sandwiches or whatever, so he expected the teams here to do _something_ to let them all eat, for God’s sake.

They should be thankful he wasn’t also asking for a toilet.

Agent Red was assigned to the front seat beside Acre. It worked. She carried Mister Yellow, the now somehow adopted name for their canary friend.

When they reached the pod, everyone got into action. Rumlow and Winter went up first, each with a load of crates. This way, they could get shit moved up and in, without disorienting Dr Foster, and hopefully giving the aliens enough time to realize that they were coming in to visit.

Agent Red went up third with Mister Yellow.

“How are you feeling?” Steve said into the comms, directing his question to Foster.

“I’m okay,” she nodded beside him. “Excited, but I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Alright, so new protocol, if you could just repeat it for me?” Steve followed her onto the Skyjack, closing the tiny gate behind him.

Foster sighed, “Jeez, again?” she made a face. “Fine. Protocol is, if at any point, I think I’m going to be sick, I must alert the team. If at any point I feel uncomfortable or in a situation I cannot handle or comprehend, I alert the team. If at any point I cannot speak, or breathe, I must pull on your arm or hand. I am not to move beyond two feet from you, Captain Rogers, because if you cannot reach me, I am already in danger.” She looked at him, mouth in a straight line. 

“Good,” Steve nodded as they rose into the alien pod.

The gravity jump-switch still had Steve’s brain wailing sirens and his guts rolling, but if he closed his eyes, it made the transition slightly easier. The medical techs had given them options to pick through to test how it affected them. Like motion sickness, the eyes could give conflicting visuals to the brain, and if gravity or motion wasn’t lining up with the visual data, then the brain could revolt and that equaled sickness. No one, and that really meant _no one_ , wanted to barf in their goldfish bowl hazmat suits. Just the thought alone had them all paling.

“Okay, step one,” Foster huffed into the comm, grasping at Steve’s hand. They’d agreed to this system, the buddy-system, to keep Foster standing and let Steve focus on her placement and safety within the pod itself. It would hopefully alleviate her stress to know that she wasn’t expected to keep watching her back, or the enclosed environment. With Steve watching her, staying close, Foster would be reassured that she could focus on just communication and the aliens.

If she started shaking, Steve would have her sit down. If she felt parched, he would insert the drinking tube into her suit and have her glug back water.

Rumlow had grumped about using Steve as a glorified butler, but Steve wasn’t bothered, not yet.

“Cameras receiving,” Hill’s voice piped into their ears. 

“Roger,” Rumlow said.

Steve and Foster slowly made their way down the rectangular tunnel. Rumlow was indeed fiddling with the second camera on the right side, its small screen showing the white blankness of the immense alien window.

Steve swallowed, staring up at it.

“Mics on,” Agent Red murmured, “Confirm. Over.” The silence of the tunnel itself could be overwhelming. So Steve was glad for the miscellaneous talking.

Tall standing microphones were built to pick up the aliens’ noises. Three cameras were ready to roll; One in the centre and backed off from the crates and such, and one angled on each side to show all interactions with the window.

Steve wasn’t stupid.

The cameras would definitely help record any and all interactions with the aliens, but he’d be a moron to not see how they would also record the movements of the team itself. Hill would be able to dictate movements and orders from a distance and if anyone fucked up, HQ would know about it.

“Recording,” Hill said. “Audio feeds coming in bright and clear. Over.”

If Steve understood this correctly, the feeds were automatically being backed up onto servers. No chips or memory sticks up here. Just equipment, wires, boxes and five soft human bodies.

Foster walked up to the window and pressed her oversized gloved hand to it.

“The quiet before the storm,” she murmured.

Steve stood behind her. He watched as Agent Winter unhooked his gun from his shoulder and looped the strap over his head, settling into a sort of parade rest.

Agent Red followed suit, standing on the right side of the window and mirrored him exactly.

There was a swath of space about fifteen feet deep from the window. This was where Foster could walk, talk, and work.

Everything behind them was stacked up, out of the way, and stabilized.

They were ready.

 --

Foster walked along the window, her breathing soft in Steve’s ear. The rest of them were to remain as quiet as possible so the feed didn’t get too loud and confusing. The agents were standing much further back, giving them all a good view.

“Did you hear that?” she paused.

Steve tensed. Yes, he had.

The ground was rumbling.

Winter and Red hoisted their guns high. Rumlow was behind Steve somewhere, watching the equipment.

There it was, that sound again. Steve’s heart jumped, remembering.

A loud horn-like wail bellowed from the white mist and shapes shifted beyond the window.

“Foster, step back,” he said, pulling at her shoulders. She followed and stumbled, back, back, braced against him.

The sound wailed louder in their ears and Steve winced, unused to such noise.

It felt like his eyes were juddering in their sockets, that his eardrums might burst. But he stayed firm.

Then.

They appeared.

First one, and then the other. Steve gasped and closed his mouth tight. He couldn’t tell them apart, these immensely terrifying monsters.

They moved on their rigid tentacle limbs, like ents right out of a Tolkien chapter. He looked between them. Were they too situating themselves in the same positions as before? It unsettled him to see them move like long-fingered, insect-like hands. One on the left, the other, the right.

Perhaps they were planning this out as well. Steve certainly couldn't tell them apart.

Foster was inhaling and exhaling in a tight rhythm, just as the medical team had taught her. She was trying to remain calm.

The aliens boomed at them and Steve winced.

“The sound came from that one,” Foster pointed to the alien on the left. The creature shifted. It moved closer. Foster shifted.

“Wait,” Steve murmured, his own heart rate jacked up.

“No, I need to start,” she said, voice a wavery mess.

Steve breathed in, then let her shoulders go.

Foster was brave.

She walked over to the crate nearest to her, where her own supplies sat. Steve watched her lift up a small whiteboard, uncap a black marker, and begin writing.

He could just make out the letters.

HUMAN.

Foster stood up, hooked the marker into her suit’s front pocket, and turned to the window. She dared not get too close. Steve came to stand behind her.

“Human,” Foster said, her voice sharp, loud. She held up the whiteboard and tapped her gloved palm against her chest. “Human.”

Steve looked at both of the giant aliens. Foster’s breaths came fast and tight, reverberating in Steve’s ears. The aliens didn’t make a sound. Then, they shifted and moved back, away, into the mist.

Foster’s hands wavered. The silence that followed seemed just as deafening.

“What’s happening?” Hill’s crackly voice came.

“They’ve…left?” Steve said. “Over.”

Rumlow grunted a few moments later. Steve turned to find him approaching. “You scared ‘em off,” he blurted at Foster, waving an arm around. “You know we lost the two hours we got in here?” He shook his head inside his suit. “Fuckin’ waste of time.”

Steve’s gaze hardened. “Not now, agent,” he said firmly. “Back to your post."

“Why bother?” Rumlow huffed, but did as he was told.

Foster was shaking. Steve put his hands on her shoulders again, reassuring. He was about to console her, when a sharp whine cut through the air. Steve winced and they both stumbled back as the aliens appeared out of the mist, moving quicker this time.

They took the same positions as before. Foster stiffened at a sharp bellow.

“Oh my God,” she gasped.

“Try again,” Steve whispered.

And so she did.

Foster moved forward two paces and, with shaking hands, held up the whiteboard again.

“H-Human,” she breathed out. “I am a human.”

She waited a moment, then stepped to the side and pointed at Steve. “Human.” She reiterated and tapped the whiteboard. “We are human.”

The aliens seemed to consider this, though Steve didn’t have any faces to look at. Then, the one on the right lifted a tentacle (Arm? Leg?) and pointed it at the window. Both Winter and Red raised their guns. “Hold it,” Steve grunted.

The tentacle came to a thick, rigid point, similar to a knitting needle. Then it split open, like a strange, meaty flower, petals of flesh rolling back. Steve stiffened. Was this an attack? Was the creature going to fire at them? Kill them?

Instead of lasers or gunfire, an odd mist spurted from the open end of the tentacle and floated in the air in front of them. It shifted and wavered and reformed before settling into a particular shape.

It held together much like ink, but it looked something like the stain left behind from a coffee mug, a circle of black inky mist that moved, and had a handful of strange tendrils extending from random points around its outer and inner edges. Steve squinted, unsure of what this meant.

Foster gasped. “They’re communicating!” she said, breathless. “Human,” she stepped closer. “Human!”

Steve blinked. Were they really trying to communicate?

Foster jumped up and down. “This is amazing,” she squeaked. “They’re attempting to talk to us! It’s like the whiteboard!”

She pulled her board around and frantically wiped at the ink with her sleeve. Steve watched as the coffee-stain mist message dissolved into nothingness and the alien lowered its tentacle.

Foster was breathing heavily, clearly excited and terrified all at once. She held up the whiteboard again before Steve could read it.

“Jane,” she said loudly. “I am Jane Foster. Jane.”

She tapped at her chest again with her giant glove. The aliens boomed at her and they all jumped.

That didn’t sound good. Foster faltered, grabbing for Steve’s elbow with one hand. Her breathing was harsh, but he heard her swallow audibly.

“Steve,” she pulled at Steve’s hand. “This is Steve. I am Jane. This is Steve.”

The aliens croaked at them loudly and one spouted off a new coffee-stain imprint into the air. Steve watched it happen for the second time and still couldn’t comprehend how it was occurring. Jane’s fist clenched into his elbow.

“They’re using the same symbol as before,” she sounded frustrated. She turned to look up at Steve. “We’re confusing them.”

“Are you sure that’s even–” he began but was cut off.

“It must be!” she cried out. Steve could see her thinking a mile a minute, her eyes wide, frantic. She had a sheen to her skin that lent itself to stress and perhaps fear. She turned back to the symbol and stared at it for a moment longer. “They can’t tell us apart in these stupid suits,” she whispered. She paused. Then she glanced over at Mister Yellow. The canary was cheeping away in its cage. It hopped about as it always did.

Steve realized what she was thinking a moment too late. Because of course, if the canary was alive and well, then maybe, _maybe_ the air wasn’t poisonous after all. Foster stepped away from Steve, lickety-split, and wrenched at her suit helmet’s velcro fastening.

“Dr. Foster, _no_ ,” Steve stepped up to her but wasn’t quick enough.

She yanked the bubble helmet right off, gasping in the air and stumbled even further away. She pushed at the suit, wriggling free of its confines all while Hill bellowed in their ears.

“What is she _doing?_ Rogers, stop her!”

Rumlow ran up close to them. Steve halted him. Rumlow growled. The aliens were bellowing, making everyone startle and back away.

“I can breathe!” Foster gasped out, hands up. “I’m fine, I…it’s okay.”

Steve’s face must have run through the gamut of emotions, because she looked a little chagrined.

“I’m sorry,” Foster said, yanking her head sock off, but keeping her earpiece in. “But we need to try. I need to try this.”

“Fuckin’ crazy,” Rumlow said, walking back to his position.

Steve didn’t have words. Was she insane? He looked over at Winter, then Red, both of whom looked beyond shocked, eyes wide, mouths open.

“Fine, we follow through,” Steve said, feeling more than a little out of his depth. “Positions.”

Foster picked up her whiteboard. “Jane,” she said and looked up at the aliens. “I am Jane.”

The aliens moved. The one on the left lifted a tentacle, and lo and behold, a new, never before seen symbol resolved itself in the air in front of them. It shifted and wiggled, its inky tendrils bobbing in and out, but this was definitely different. It had a bigger black blob on the lower left part of the rim, and it didn’t make a full circle, leaving a gap along the top of the shape.

Foster squealed.

“Jane!” she smacked her chest again. “They can see me!”

Steve’s heart beat a thunderous rhythm in his chest. Holy _shit._

“She did it,” Red could be heard, sounding awestruck.

Steve could barely believe it.

She was crazy and didn’t listen to protocol, but she was right! Dr Foster was communicating with aliens! They were one step closer to understanding this mess. Steve pondered for a moment, then went, _ah fuck it,_ and ripped at his own helmet, tearing himself free.

“Rogers!” Hill barked in his ear. “What the–”

He ignored the gasps around him, choosing instead to pull his head sock up and off, freeing him of its constricting, sweaty fabric. He dropped his helmet on the floor of the tunnel and turned to face their visitors.

“Steve,” he said, voice wavering a little. He tapped his gloved hand against his chest in emphasis.

“I am Steve.”


	4. Chapter 4

They stayed the full two hours this time.

Steve stood behind Foster and watched as she attempted to understand, attempted to _speak_ to the aliens. Steve was in awe.

It wasn’t easy, they soon discovered. She was scrambling for signals, for ways to get it right. Steve watched as the ink stains on her forearms only grew larger after each wipe of the whiteboard.

He breathed slow and steady even though his heart was hammering. Both of them were down to their t-shirts and work pants, hazmat suits thrown aside. He watched agents Red and Winter glance at each other repeatedly, some kind of signals surely passing between them. Rumlow kept quiet and manned the tech gear from somewhere behind them, though he still managed to radiate distaste.

The aliens were loud and demonstrative with their symbols, still making them all jump with their resonating bellows and odd movements. Steve couldn’t follow much, and was pretty sure Foster was hanging on by a thread, but she pushed onwards, aware that the video feed would capture most, if not all of this encounter. Everything could be evaluated later, in a less hurried, and frankly, less terrifying environment.

By the time the aliens had decided enough was enough, and disappeared back into the mist, Steve was sure Foster was going to collapse. She had pushed herself unexpectedly far for so little feedback and it was showing. She shakily took a seat on a crate while he opened up a water bottle and handed it to her. Her hands were wavering, as were her knees. Steve understood.

The walk back to the Skyjack gave Steve a moment to collect himself, focused as he was on getting Foster out of the dark ominous tunnel. Once she was posted back on the skyjack, he went back to follow Rumlow through the tidy-up protocol, watching as the man unhooked and turned off whatever media they wouldn’t need. Steve wondered if the tech stuff even worked when the tunnel pod was closed off. Probably not. Rumlow was certainly better suited to this stuff, but Steve still liked to see what stes were required to shut this down before exit. Besides, he knew Rumlow, as good as he was with tech, hated the fiddly stuff. Maybe Steve could just take over that role in the wind-down.

He waited for Red and Winter to get moving as well and then followed them out. Agent Acre would be waiting. As he walked slowly, his and Foster’s hazmat suits in his arms, he finally felt the coiled tension in his shoulders and the stiffness in his neck. He was covered in sweat, could feel it trailing down his spine, caught up in his hair, behind his ears. Jesus, what had just _happened?_

He made the awkward twist-leap onto the skyjack, almost clipping Winter in the face with his boot. He landed heavily, the skyjack groaning.

The five of them were quiet.

The skyjack lumbered noisily, bringing them back down to earth physically, and in some ways, mentally.

 

* * *

Hill and her crew were apoplectic, with a mixture of rage and anxious molly-coddling driving them all to madness.

Steve made sure Foster was shuffled into medical hands before he too was grabbed and summarily manhandled into a decontamination shower.

Medics stripped him down to his skin and scrubbed him to within an inch of his life. How they didn’t flinch at his winces when the loofahs rubbed at his ribs and feet, he’ll never know. He was then run through the gamut of safety and medical check-ups probably only reserved for glossy, jittery racehorses. They took samples of his hair, blood, skin cells, even the air in his damn lungs. He had lights shone in his eyes and his reflexes were tested over and over and _over_ again. They pulled even more of his blood, the medics holding the glass vials as if they were cast in gold. There was still an overly-intrusive fascination with Steve’s blood - like the serum could be hunted out and reverse-engineered even though tests had proven time again that this was not true. Whatever was in the serum that made Steve what he was now, was lost to time. He felt that familiar ping of smug pride whenever test results came back inconclusive. Many a doctor liked to think of him as a walking, talking specimen and it was a small joy to see them disappointed every time they disregarded his bodily autonomy in the pursuit of science.

While he was being poked and wrangled and pushed about, Hill berated and barked at him like he was her deranged, uncontrollable greyhound that had escaped from its pen.

“The fucking _audacity_ ,” she hissed from the other side of the bed. A doc was taking his blood pressure, watching as the dial ticked over steadily. This doctor was quiet, eyes focused.

Hill, on the other hand, had been snapping at him non-stop from the second her own jeep had careened up to them outside the pod, through the barely-opaque decontamination shower curtain, beyond the skin scrapings and hair brushing, and right up and into this very moment where Steve sat with the doctor.

“You know because of the excellent sound and video, we wouldn’t have to scrap this operation. We could just boot in another superior, perhaps _more competent_ officer,” she sighed, and rubbed at her eyes. Maybe she’d finally run out of fuel. “But,” she glared at him, “we don’t have _time_ to train anyone else.” _Plus_ , Steve could hear in the silence, _you’ve met the damn pod aliens and we can’t freak any more people out, so you’ll have to do._

Steve looked over at her. “Is Foster okay?” he murmured, feeling light-headed. It was like his very delicate, but reinforced, DNA strands were holding him together like krazy glue. He was _exhausted._

Hill looked up at him, letting her hands drop to her hips.

“Doctor Foster is ... in medical. She’s getting checked over; A little roughed up, actually.” She scowled, “Another reason why what you both did was plain idiotic. She doesn’t have your bullheadedness, you know. ”

Steve sniffed. In his mind things could have gone a lot worse than they did. “I’m not sick though.” He looked at the doctor. “Right?”

The man blinked, perhaps surprised that anyone was paying any attention to him. He cleared his throat and stood up. His name tag read  _Dr. P. Chowdhury._

“You appear to be in excellent health, Captain Rogers,” his voice was measured and hinted at some sort of British background. “So far, we have not found signs of infection or any abnormalities in your blood or other samples.” 

Steve smiled wanly. 

“Though your heart rate is perhaps a little fast … well,” the man cleared his throat, “…for _you_ , and the adrenaline spike has yet to come down,” the doctor went on. “These are standard signs of stress. You _are_ going to have to rest.” He stared right into Steve’s eyes. “No question about that.”

Steve sighed heavily. He felt tired down to the molecular level. Every bone, every muscle felt wrung out, like a sopping towel twisted up, tighter and tighter under aggressive handling.

“If it wasn’t doctor’s goddamn orders, I’d have you straight into a briefing,” Hill said acerbically. Steve wanted to collapse in relief. 

He really wouldn’t be much good in a briefing. His brain felt like pounded oatmeal.

Hill peered at him from under her furrowed brows. “Thank your lucky stars, Rogers.”

 

* * *

 

He was finally released an hour later, able to wobble to the mess hall and locate something, anything to eat.

He defaulted to heavy carbs. He needed the sugar rush, the brain cells inside his skull crying out for _something_ satisfactory. Two boxes of smarties and five chocolate chip muffins got the job done. Good. he didn’t even sit down to eat, just stood at the serving counter and slowly jammed the muffins into his mouth one by one, followed by handfuls of smarties. It reminded him vaguely of 1944, back when rations were tight and he was almost blinded by his hunger, constantly shoving K-rations down his gullet. Truth be told, he’d learned a lot of ways to get fed, even in the worst conditions. He could eat standing, hanging upside-down, stuck up a tree, in a river and during a firefight. Steve Rogers was the man with a plan … in the right situation _._

Once the hunger was sated, he ambled back to his pup tent, the rest of the base bustling around him, heedless of his desire to pass out. The day was bright and he was off-kilter, unsure of the time.

These 18-hour gaps were going to mess him up well and good.

He finally made it to his tent and, mercifully, his army-issued cot, grateful for the reprieve from the constant staring faces and stomping boots. He fell onto the rough canvas, the metal legs straining, squealing beneath his bulk as he closed his eyes, aching for sleep.

 

* * *

 

> _You loved thunder like no one I’d known before. I go outside sometimes to stand in the rain, remind myself of how it made you look, your face tilted towards the sky. Your eyes would light up from the inside every time you smiled, you know. You had eyes to write home about, eyes the strength of a storm, pitched cold and hard against the world. Ma would have loved you. I always said so. It was as if the rain clouds beckoned you and called you outside, even in the middle of the night. You’d sit with me and we’d wait it out._
> 
> _I miss the sensation of sitting beside_ my _person, you, talking about stupid things. Remember that time we argued over the metric system? God, it was so damn stupid, but you were heated about it, appalled that America, the great nation it was, still worked on the old feet and inches while the world moved on. I hope I’m not like that, but I feel that way sometimes, that the rest of the world has gone metric and I’m uncalibrated and outdated, waiting for my system to come back online._
> 
> _ We always curled up together when it rained, watched the lights flicker on the windows and listened to the thunder rolling in the distance. You’d count them out, proud of the one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi rule you’d learned. Sometimes the lightning got closer and sometimes it disappeared. I remember your hand in mine, dry and warm and so, so comforting.  _
> 
> _We’d drink warm rum, the cheap kind, the stuff we were most familiar with, and whisper dirty jokes in each other’s ears._
> 
> _I can feel the shape of you, here with me. I’m sure I can. It feels heavy, this emptiness.It shouldn’t feel like this, but it does. That’s the weight of you that I carry with me._

 

* * *

Steve woke up, tears choking him.

It felt like he was being smothered, as if his lungs were too small for him. It reminded him of _back then_ , when he was nothing more than a pipsqueak, struggling under the weakness of his stupid biology.

He gasped and wiped at his face, the sadness still enveloping him, holding him back.

It felt endless, this sadness. Like it would never leave him, like he was doomed to wake to yet another day with these thoughts in his head.

He snuffled and wiped at his runny nose.

There was noise outside, a rattling spatter. He looked up, the roof of his tent barely an inch above him. It was raining. He inhaled slowly, breath shaking, unsteady, his lips not cooperating. He breathed out slower, making an o with his quivering mouth, fingers gripping the cot edge. His stomach roiled and he winced, gritting his teeth. It was there again, behind his molars, the sensation of sickness.

_Fuck._

He threw the tent flap open and rushed outside. It _was_ raining, the sky dark and thunderous. He staggered away from his tent, over the damp-dark field that spread out as far as the eye could see. 

“Damnit,” he snarled and bent over, all dignity thrown to the wind.

His stomach felt like an animal in his gut, tossing and turning as it rid him of his sugary smarties reward for getting through the event. He heaved and choked under the waves of nausea, cold rain smacking against his back and down his arms and neck.

The sky pelted him with big fat droplets and he gasped for air, shaky hands pressed to his knees. He gulped and swallowed, trying to right himself, but to no avail. The water poured over him, soaking his shirt and pants. _Fuck_ , again, he hadn’t changed into his sleepwear.

He felt hot all over.

He let the remaining tears wash down his cheeks, mixing with the rain that soaked the world around him. 

Eventually, he was able to stand, legs quivering. He turned, wiped at his mouth and looked away, far to the right.

There it was, ominous and silent. The alien pod floated, a blackness sunk deep against the grey sky.

He breathed in, slow and heavy, then went to gather himself.

* * *

 

He found himself back in the mess hall. It was crowded and loud and his head felt like it had a drummer hammering away between his ears. He waited in line, warding off overly-friendly recruits by keeping his eyes focused on the middle distance.

Once he piled enough food onto his tray to feed a tiger, he turned to find a seat. Back at HQ the officers have their own floor and offices, so he was able to mind his mealtimes in peace if they weren’t on any missions. Here, it’s not unlike being in some of the elementary schools Steve’s visited on charity tours.

His eyes fell to the corner table where Agents Red and Winter were seated.  Steve squeezed past a group of agents and headed that way.  Both Russians looked up when he slid his tray onto the table.  Red must have finished already, her tray clean and her plate empty. She was rolling a metal water bottle between her hands slowly.

“Captain,” she said.

Steve inclined his head, “Agent Red.”

He sat heavily and eyed his own tray of meat and veg.

Winter was working his way through a mountain of similar food. How long had they been here?  Steve caught a nearby table watching them. The agents there hastily got back to faking some conversation. He sighed and stabbed a potato with his fork.

“Did you both sleep alright?” he asked before taking a bite.

Red looked at him, her eyes sharp. “Not too bad,” she said. “Body clock’s a little off but that’s nothing new.”

Steve nodded and swallowed. He glanced at Winter.  The man looked as bad as Steve felt. His pale eyes looked sunken  and he had missed a spot shaving. He had very smooth skin, though.

Those grey-blue eyes flicked upwards, catching Steve’s stare. 

“You sleep okay?” Steve harrumphed out, repeating himself. “I like to know what my team’s about.”

Winter stared at him, then his eyes slid to meet Red’s.  “I slept fine,” he grumbled.

Red’s eyebrows moved a hair, a delicate line twitching between them. Steve had to hand it to her, she was excellent at playing her cards close to her chest. After the few days he’d been working with them, he found her to be the impenetrable wall and not Winter.

“He did not sleep well,” she said, looking back at Steve. Winter’s head shot up and he glared at her. Were his mouth not full, Steve bet he would have cursed her out in Russian. Red shrugged at her partner’s face. “It’s true. We need to share this info. This mission is different.” She said something else in Russian, but it wasn’t too harsh, Steve thought. It caused Winter to pause his chewing.

Steve sighed, “Look, I know this isn’t your team, this isn’t really my team either,” he rolled a potato through his carrots. “But if we go out there…” he looked up at them both. _Out there. With them._ “And someone’s not doing good, it could seriously jeopardize the mission. I don’t want anyone getting messed up by this thing. We need to sleep, we need to eat, all of that needs to track well.”

Red sat back. “Agreed.”

Steve looked at Winter. The man swallowed and nodded slowly.

“I didn’t sleep well,” Steve sighed.The Russians’ eyebrows went up in unison. 

“Your serum isn’t just putting you to sleep?” Red queried.

“Nope,” Steve bit into a carrot. 

“Huh,” she said, folding her arms. “Surprising.” She glanced at Winter.

“Drink water,” Winter said abruptly.

“Sorry, what?” Steve said.

“Water before bed,” Winter murmured. “It’s good for rest.”

“Didn’t Red just say you didn’t sleep well?”

“Oh, you think he takes his own advice,” Red smiled. Winter glared at her. “A good shower, exfoliating your skin and eating oranges helps too. He taught me that. He knows everything, but it’s not in his nature to actually follow through himself.”

Winter glared harder, like he could push her off her seat with his eyes.

“You are so full of shit,” he murmured.

Red smirked and Steve blinked. These two actually did get along. Huh. Who knew?

 

* * *

Hill called them to their briefing. Steve steeled himself. He’d tried very hard not to think of the recent Event. Every time he dis, it felt like a migraine was trying to burrow its way free of his head via his eyes.

The Russians led him down the many winding hallways to the main meeting room.

Steve took the time to look them over.

Red was in what must be a duped SHIELD uniform with the badges missing. Her hair was loose, perfectly straight. He wondered how much effort went into this façade, this flawless exterior. She carried herself well, back straight, arms loose, but he could tell she was alert and ready at all times. It’s like it’s a part of her, this wariness. For someone so petite it’s continually shocking to find how large she feels in any room. Not once has anyone like Rumlow, for example, overshadowed Red. As in many armed forces, SHIELD’s female recruits in some way or another are pushed aside by their burly, brawny counterparts.

Red reminded Steve of Hill in some ways, but because of the _other_ signs he had picked up, he knew not to trust her. They weren’t friends. They were barely colleagues, for now.

Then there was agent Winter. He wasn’t separated from Red very often. He walked beside her with purpose, hands at his belt, his own duped uniform larger and slightly looser. He walked at a steady pace, more silent that was expected.

The man was built, Steve could tell. He had broad shoulders and big, gloved hands. He also wore heavy boots that wrapped up his calves. He seemed so large beside Red, it should have been comical, but the two Russians stood as equals. How the bulky man didn’t overshadow the tiny redhead was mystifying.

If Steve had to choose a word for Winter, it would be _sturdy_. Perhaps hefty. He wondered how much the man weighed, how he compared to Steve himself. They couldn’t be that different, could they?

 

* * *

Steve expected the yelling. He wasn’t new to the concept of superiors being unhappy with his actions and reaming him out.

He _had_ been surprised by the appearance of Nick Fury, but that was quickly tempered by the rip-roaring argument he’d found Foster and Fury engaged in when he, Winter and Red had shown up.  Fury had apparently been questioning Foster’s decisions on how to broach language with the aliens. Foster had retaliated in kind, heedless of Fury’s rank, and told him exactly where to get off. She _was_ the resident linguistic expert on the base after all.

Steve really couldn’t help smiling.

Mercifully, they were released and told to report to the science sector to go over the materials from the Event.

He took a quick restroom break and headed over. Now that his stomach and head felt easier, he was interested to see what the scientists had discovered while the Event Crew had been asleep.

Steve blinked when he noticed Foster already sitting on one of the front desks in the dimly-lit computer lab tent that had been cordoned off for her team.

Red and Winter were seated nearby, looking at a computer screen with Kamala.

He went over to Foster.

“Hey,” he said, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she brushed him off. But he could tell she hadn’t slept well either. The skin under her eyes was mottled and her hair had been hastily pulled back into a ponytail. Her overalls were rumpled, the sleeves rolled up her arms, very much against uniform regs. She had fingerprints on her glasses.

“Here, let me,” Steve gently took them from off her nose and pulled out the soft handkerchief he kept in his jacket’s inner pocket. 

He huffed on the glass and wiped at it carefully.

“You don’t have to do that Captain Rogers,” she sighed.

Steve smiled and held the spectacles up to the light and looked through them. He caught Winter watching him. What was with his face? Winter’s brow was furrowed.

“Here you go,” Steve handed the glasses back once he was done. Then he sat down on the chair attached to the table she was leaning against.

Foster thanked him and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m tired,” she murmured, “But excited.” She pointed to the students from her team. “They’re going to show us what’s what in a few minutes. I’m hoping to get a few hours in myself before the next Event. I need a better strategy for responding to the visitors. Sasha’s got some new ideas, I think, and Andy’s gone off to the networking tent to talk to some other math nerds.”

Steve nodded. “Sounds good.”

Sometimes he would forget for a moment, that the world was falling apart outside of their little encampment. Every time he checked the news he regretted it. Russia was still stirring up shit, inciting China and North Korea’s governments, pushing at the EU, demanding information. Hill had said that yes, info was being passed on, select details, but not enough to freak out the news networks. Only a select fewwere aware that Captain America was talking to the aliens. They couldn’t let that get out. It was already a nightmare trying to keep the air clear and corral the miscellaneous journalists and citizens as it was, without luring in more with the chance of sighting Cap.

Fury had also lambasted them for messing with the rules. _It’s a damn miracle this mission hasn’t already imploded with you all dicking around with the protocols,_ were his exact words.

Foster looked at Steve.

“I’m glad they assigned me to you, Steve,” she said.

He smiled back.

He knew what she meant. He had helped her up there in the pod just by standing with her, being her wall to lean on.

“You’re going to figure this out,” he said. “I just know it.”

“Oh, no pressure,” she laughed.

“None whatsoever."

 

* * *

The quality of the video and audio pulled from the pod was exceptional.

The team sat for hours watching the flashing images of the aliens and the their symbols light up the main screens around them.

The whole crew had to sit through these overviews and learn what they could. Foster and her team worked double-time to prep them and try to not reset what had already been done.

They planned for a week’s worth of Events in advance, set down the daily, hourly and pre-Event action items and set off.

 

* * *

Day after day they worked at it.

Two hours in the pod, eighteen hours between. That allowed for six hours sleep each, 3 hours for meals and breaks. One hour to stretch their legs and eight to analyze the data and sit through briefing and debriefings and medical checks and more debriefings.

Through this tightly-focused lens they all worked.

It became their routine and only theirs, because while they were up in the pod, the only other departments involved were security, tech and comms.

While the Event Crew was on soil, the base came to life, scientists analyzing and sharing and breaking down every pixel, every soundbite as fast as they could because, after all, the world was at stake wasn’t it?

 

* * *

 

**_  - Excerpts from the scientific journal of Dr. Jane Foster.  __MSc, PhD -_   **

 

* * *

 

 

> Heptaradially-symmetrical is what we in the scientific world are calling them. Seven-limbed, evenly-balanced, pod-shaped visitors.
> 
> Heptapods.
> 
> That’s what the world is calling them.
> 
> The two we have encountered in the Montana wilderness are the only ones that humans have made contact with, as far as I know. Though we know nothing about them, we endeavour to try and find some indication of their purpose on earth. Why here? Why now? What do they need or want? More importantly, do they come to us as enemies, are they dangerous?
> 
> Through these visitors and the SHIELD communications array, we have discovered so much information. I have had the pleasure of working with a truly magnificent group of individuals. We are attempting to speak to these visitors. We want to learn their language.   
>  I am attempting to grasp the idea, the reasoning behind the Heptapods’ intriguing method of communication.  Although these aliens do not speak in any tongue we can pick up through the audio feeds, they do speak visually, as one would in sign language.
> 
> Each Heptapod symbol is circular, hanging in the air. Every symbol is unique, with moving tendrils that bleed from the circle’s edges. At first we understood it to be a logographic writing system, much like Egyptian hieroglyphics, making use of an image as a phrase or morpheme. However, the longer we’ve worked at it, the deeper my team has dug, the more I realize we are working with something intrinsically different to our language, perhaps even our understanding of the world. These visitors use non-linear orthography, a theoretical, now proven real, facet of linguistics. I didn't think that I would come across such a language in my lifetime. Such a thrilling discovery!
> 
> It appears that the tendrils and shapes of these symbols are not just decorative, to differentiate each symbol from another, as we would do with our own alphabets; instead, the circular nature of their language is built on the concept of a ceaseless eternity. A language that is not affected by when it is used.
> 
> Their language, I believe, has no beginning and no end. One could approach a concept, a word, a thought, from any point within that sentence. It is as though their sentence structure is not based on a relative direction from point A to point B. They do not perceive moments in time, as they do not see the universe as we humans do. To them, time is nothing. And nothing is linear, which means their language is not linear.
> 
> Andy, my brilliant mathematics student is working on an ingenious application that analyzes each Heptapod symbol and what we associate with it. For example, we can now tell the difference between Captain Rogers’ name and my own name in their language. _If_ the visitors understand the concept of names, we think this is what they’ve given us. So with these two starting samples, we have a clear comparison point. Couldn’t get much better than that, if you ask me! The only direction now, is forward.
> 
> From the many words and phrases we’ve pulled from the visitors, we've begun to catalogue the elements of the logograms and I can feel it inside, that we are reaching a tipping point of understanding.
> 
> Maybe it will come together soon.
> 
> The Heptapods speak from a place of vast knowledge and we are scrambling to understand them and why they’ve come to us.
> 
> I find myself laying awake at night, still entranced by the shapes and sounds of each encounter with the visitors. My dreams are much the same, filled with mist and smoke and sound and circles and everything is bleeding into one thing or another and making a real mess inside my head.
> 
> Though every session, every Event, is taxing on my body and I feel eternally tired,I have faith.
> 
> I am coming to a sort of realization as well: I do not think they aim to hurt us. I have not said this out loud as I believe I am in the minority here (on an armed forces base no less.) I cannot say why I know this, perhaps it is just a feeling. I also am not sure if any other member of the Event Crew is grasping what I am seeing and feeling. No one else seems to resonate as much as me with these creatures and that is unsettling, to be alone in this. 
> 
> But there is something happening here that we cannot account for. Time, as much as the Heptapods do not address it, is against us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for hanging in there! :D It's slow going, but we're getting there.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Steve’s eyes ached.

He rubbed at them and blinked a few times to try and clear the spots.

He’d sat down to have his usual four-hour before Event debrief with the ‘science squad’. Kamala and Sasha had apparently spent hours debating the name for their team and Foster had flat-out denied them the right to call themselves ‘the brain trust’.

The team had somehow managed to wrangle a plethora of wide screens into their tent to hook up to Andy’s computer. The software he had built was beyond Steve’s limited knowledge of what ‘hard coding’ was. In Andy’s own words, he had created a database of every alien symbol that Foster had tried to match to a human English word or phrase. With this database starting to build up, Andy was trying to graft a visual recognition widget into some other software-thingy and _that_ widget was tracing and outlining and collecting spatial data from every single Heptapod symbol. What did that mean? Hell if Steve knows. The closest monitor showed a circle of ink and its matching english word, in this case the word 'head', beneath it. The software was slowly highlighting tendrils and dips and hills in the texture of the ink stain symbol. Tiny yellow markers were popping up along the image’s edges, each labeled with a number. Apparently these fluctuations around the dark ring were what defined the changes from one phrase or word to the next, but in minute increments. 

Andy was always jittery these days, consuming his body weight in coffee and staying up well past his bedtime to map out as many items as humanly possible before the next Event. The kid had tenacity, that was for sure.

Honestly, Steve was impressed, but continuously at a loss in regards to whatever was happening around him.

Fundamentally, he was coming around to some caveman-era understanding, but then computers were never really his bag. Agent Red paid more attention and she even had input for Andy on the odd occasion, as if she too understood the coding onscreen.

Winter’s eyes glazed over whenever Andy started talking about XML and tagging systems. Rumlow didn’t have the time for the ‘techies’, choosing instead to keep training with the senior STRIKE team members onsite.

Steve blinked at the monitors around them in the badly-lit tent. His brain felt like it was melting every time he saw the symbols flashing across the many screens. Maybe it was the repetitive nature of the language and maybe he was just tired, but learning German hadn’t felt like this. It was as if the language was tugging at a different part of his mind. Because the symbols weren’t exactly pictograms of recognizable things, and not letters from a language he could attach it to, they just pushed at a soft, unused part of his brain, making him woozy all over again.

The last Event had been exhausting for both him and Foster.

She was working like a mad dog every waking moment, trying to figure out word choices, phrases, concepts that she hoped would be illustrated by the Heptapod language. It was not an easy task. Steve wasn’t even sure they were doing it right, but after hours and hours of handing her words printed on paper and mapping out the changed symbols each time, he really hoped she knew what she was doing.

They needed a lot of correlation between the two languages for this to come together properly.

There were things the aliens couldn’t translate, or perhaps didn’t understand. Apples, for example, were completely beyond them.

However, the concept of ‘travel’ was as easy as pie for them to pull out of their inky tentacle extremities.

Steve still found the Heptapods eerie and unsettling, in the way they moved, their lack of faces, and their terrifying sounds. He was certain Foster felt the same, but her mulish, stubborn nature just drove her onwards. Steve could respect that.

He and every other person on the team was awed by her intellect. She wasn’t _just_ mapping out random words. She was looking at the slight changes in the symbols, noting what differences occurred and linking them back to English sentence structure. 

The Event Crew had gone deathly silent the last time they'd been up in the pod.

Foster had been pushing for verbs, adverbs, adjectives. The concepts were hard to figure out when you can’t exactly illustrate them. Walking, talking, moving, things like that that were so simple in nature, had to be shown with physical motion. Steve had become a bit of a marionette to pose and move about for Foster when she needed it. 

The verbs had been tough, until she’d pushed for posessesive pronouns.

Only a few hours ago Foster had shown her talent, using a blue rubber ball to demonstrate. She’s held it out. The aliens had a symbol for the blue ball, Foster had made sure to create a word for it in their vocabulary. If the aliens had just made up a symbol for it on the spot, Foster didn’t care. She had held the ball to her chest and said the word “mine.” That would be difficult to explain, to Steve, and he spoke the damn language. How does one interpret, explain ownership?

The aliens had struggled with it, not understanding her meaning.

That was the frustrating part, but Foster was a pro. Early on, she had translated the symbol for “understood/understand” so that the aliens could use it. And they did. Liberally.

She’d then handed the ball off to Steve and said “not mine” and “yours” in various motions. Gender wasn’t a thing the Heptapods could fathom, which made Foster immensely happy, as it trimmed down a lot of language elements she wouldn’t need, things like his or hers.

The Heptapods understood what she was asking and it took them a moment to formulate, perhaps draft their version of her words. _This_ was why Foster was impressive. She was ten steps ahead of everyone else because she understood the pitfalls, stepping stones and detours required to build a language. 

She was looking for valuable terms to use in a short period of time. She was a goddamn genius.

And this was why Steve sat in front of the wall of monitors, staring at their hours of data collection. He wanted to understand where the team was going. Andy was showing them how the tap and display functions of his app worked. Foster would be able to pick English words from the database and display them to the aliens on a screen up in the pod tunnel. This was a game-changer.

Winter leaned forward in his seat. Steve glanced over at the man. His dark hair looked unwashed and he kept wringing his hands between his knees. Was he not sleeping still? It had been ages, and sure, they were all losing sleep, but if the Russian agent couldn’t keep it together, Steve would be obligated to push for a medical intervention, perhaps put him out of commission for one of the upcoming Events.

He didn’t want to do that. Winter was quiet and stoic, but he stayed out of the way and wasn’t pissing anybody off. Steve kept an eye on the man, but wasn’t really sure why at this point. They were all too far gone to be worried about data security. If SHIELD wasn’t on it, it wasn’t really up to Steve.

Red caught his look and Steve went back to listening to Andy’s instructional demonstration.

 

* * *

Rumlow cornered Steve after the meeting. He looked harried and more than a little grumpy.

“Cap,” he said, back straight. “I got something. Intel.”

“On what?” Steve paused, stomach growling. He needed to eat sooner rather than later before the Event got up and running.

Rumlow paused.

Agents Winter and Red walked by, probably also on their way to the mess hall.

Rumlow’s jaw clenched, eyes following the agents. Steve had worked with Brock on many operations in the past. The man was very good at what he did. Manning a STRIKE team wasn’t for the faint of heart and Rumlow was anything but gentle. He was one of those driven, almost manically so, individuals in SHIELD that garnered a lot of respect for his skillset and capable nature. He was considered a real asset, a strong fighter and an inevitable leader in the making.

But if Steve was honest with himself, he’d say that something was off lately with the other man. So Steve followed Rumlow, perhaps out of curiosity more than concern, down a tributary hallway, in the opposite direction the Russians had taken.

They found a quiet empty tent used by some of the ground crew.

“What’s going on?” Steve murmured.

Rumlow huffed out a low, long breath, “Look. It’s rough, this gig. We all know it, Cap.”

Steve nodded. Every level of SHIELD was involved in this and if you were a coordinator from the lowest level, or a Senior Officer up top, this whole Event Program was definitely causing irreparable damage on many psyches and sleep patterns across the board.

“I know you’re not in your whole superhero Captain America-whatever capacity right now,” Rumlow went on, “so it’s not like you’re gonna step in. But–” he dug around in his uniform trouser pocket and pulled out a grey plastic thing. Steve frowned. “You gotta see this, Cap.”

Steve took the USB drive. It was unmarked. “What’s this about?” he murmured, confused.

“The whole world’s this close,” Rumlow held up his fingers, separated by a hair’s breadth of space, “ _this_ close to fucking imploding. And we got the best people here, Cap. The _best_. I don’t want this to fuckin’ go belly up.”

Steve sighed, “We’ll make sure of it. Hill’s got it under control.”

Was Rumlow actually nervous, or something? Very uncharacteristic of him.

Rumlow chuckled, his voice rough and grating, “Naw, listen. They’ve been keeping shit from us, from you.” He held both palms up, “I get it for most ops, General Hill holds the key to everything and we don’t gotta know the rest. But these Russians, Cap? They ain’t right.”

Steve frowned. “What do you mean? They don’t really have a choice–”

“That’s what Fury says. That’s what the General says, but they didn’t tell us this shit,” Rumlow pointed to the USB in Steve’s hand. “Read up on these…agents. I don’t want them working with us. I don’t trust ‘em. We can’t. They’re Russian operatives. You have any idea how many Russians blew my teams up? You know how many of these bastards fucked us over in the name of the Goddamn Motherland? It’s fuckin’ bullshit, Cap, and we ain’t standing for it.”

Steve curled his fingers around the USB. Rumlow had said ‘we’. That meant his STRIKE team was probably behind him on this. This was serious.

“I’m not saying Hill and Fury got it all wrong,” Rumlow leaned in close. “But if the wool’s been pulled over their eyes, someone’s gotta do something about it. This alien shit is gonna get fucked to hell if we’re not able to trust our squad. All the science nerds on earth wouldn’t be able to help us then. These fuckers sabotage us and we’re not coming back from it. It’s over.” Rumlow’s face was dark, venomous. “Fox in the hen house. We shoots foxes, remember?”

Rumlow stood up and backed off before saluting Steve and exiting the side tent.

Steve exhaled slowly and looked down at his closed fist.

On one hand, Rumlow _might_ be onto something and Steve should investigate whatever he had, cover his bases. On the other hand, Rumlow was also red-eyed, sweaty and bearing a day’s worth of beard, something he was usually pretty meticulous about trimming. Which begged the question: what signs were real indicators of trouble and what were simply red herrings?

“Damn it,” he sighed under his breath, wishing not for the first time that he could turn back time.

 

* * *

  

The Event went as planned.

Dr Foster excelled at defining even more words, now aided by the fancy equipment Andy and the Science Squad built for her.

Steve watched as she tapped on her tablet and an alien symbol appeared on the elevated monitor facing the Heptapods.

The Event Crew didn’t dress in hazmats anymore. Foster was dressed in her uniform pants and a simple grey t-shirt. Out of context, she might have been mistaken for a student in a museum, just taking notes, and not a linguist currently standing in the bowels of an alien spaceship on a mission to save planet earth.

Not that they know why the aliens were here. Not yet. The pressure was on.

Steve sat on a crate and stayed silent.

He too was in a t-shirt and work pants.

He liked to watch her work, making sure she didn’t run herself into the ground.

It was hot up in here and they always made sure to bring up a box of bottled water for everyone.

Steve watched Red and Winter as well. Each agent still kept to their posts on either side of the wide window. Both agents still carried weapons, both still on high alert, no matter what Foster told them.

“They haven’t shown signs of aggression,” she kept huffing, put off by the immense weaponry the Russians insisted on carrying.

“Jeeves might not be,” Red had said last time, “But that guy on the left, Wooster, who knows.”

She’d said this with a smirk and Steve had had to hold back the impulse to roll his eyes.

“Why are you calling them that?” he’d asked.

Red had just shrugged, “There’s two of them?”

“Why not Laurel and Hardy?” Foster had said, like she was helping (she wasn’t).

Red had remained placid, "Why not Marx and Engels? Poehler and Fey? It’s just made up.”

“All names are made up,” Winter had contributed his own wisdom to the argument.

And that was how the aliens got their new monikers.

Foster struggled to make sentences for the Heptapods. Images of ink rings flashed across the display and the aliens responded in kind with their own ink symbols.

Steve blinked, recognizing Foster’s name. Huh. He was getting used to that one.

He’d even memorized the symbol of his own name, feeling special that he even had one, but it never came up in conversation with the Heptapods.

Foster wiped at her brow and Steve got up, turning to head back into the tunnel.

He pulled out a water bottle from the box and twisted off the cap.

Rumlow was back here, watching the tech equipment.

Steve watched him for a moment.

Rumlow was staring at Winter, a dark shadow over his brow.

Steve frowned and turned back.

Winter was still focused on the window of light.

Steve made Foster drink up, his suspicions overridden for a while by his need to ensure she was okay.

 

* * *

  

> _It’s not as hard as it used to be._
> 
> _After…well,_ after _, I had a rough go of it. You would have been so mad. You wanted me to stay happy, stay strong, but it’s not that simple. I made it, obviously, but is it really making it when I don’t have you?_
> 
> _I donate to the hospital every year. I go to the children’s fundraiser, you know? I like to see the happy kids and their parents. It’s really the least I can do. I can’t fix their illnesses, their little bodies, but I can pretend I’m some kind of hero for a day and they smile at me and it’s okay for a while._
> 
> _When you were in the hospital bed, I’d hold your hand so tight, because I was terrified. You were the one hooked up to tubes and machines and there I was, barely keeping it together. I was selfish. I wanted to keep you. I wanted to destroy the sickness. I yelled at the doctor more than once, unhappy with the lack of results. It wasn’t the doc’s fault. I know that._
> 
> _It was fate, it was hell, it was God himself coming to take you. Whatever it was, I’ve never been the same. I don’t know if I ever will be. Maybe not. But I had you for a while. And though it hurts today the same as it did then, I loved you. I always will._

 

* * *

 

“Ugh,” Steve rubbed at his eyes. Someone was at his tent flap door.

“Hello?” came a familiar voice.

Steve rolled over and pulled at the barely-closed flap. Foster was there, leaning down to see into his tent.

“Nice place,” she smiled wanly.

“Jesus, are you okay?” he sat up straighter. She looked haggard, her ponytail a mess, her eyes red.

Foster bent down and crawled into his tent, coming to sit on the plastic flooring.

“Um,” she pushed at her messy hair. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Steve settled his socked feet on the floor. He wished he had a wall to lean against. This whole pup tent situation was wearing real thin.

“Is your bed close?” he asked, then flushed. “I-I didn’t mean–”

She laughed, “it’s not too far off. Me and the team were talking to Hill,” she looked up at him on his cot. “We’re, we’re thinking of setting up a team bunker tent.”

Steve blinked. “That…that doesn’t sound bad.”

“Yeah,” Foster rubbed her hands over her kneecaps. She couldn’t keep still, rocking a little. “We’re, um, cramped. And I don’t think anyone’s sleeping too well.”

Steve rubbed at his own tired eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

Foster sniffed.

“Um,” she said slowly, “I have a question. Well, maybe two.”

“Fire away,” Steve murmured, glad to have someone talking while his brain woke up.

“Are you…” she rubbed at her nose and pushed at her glasses. “Are you really Captain America?”

Steve blinked. “What?”

Foster’s face was flushed. “I just…my team said something about that earlier and I was so confused.” She looked up at him. “I don’t pay attention to the news, or TV much, if I’m honest. I mean, I know you’re, he’s, uh, out there. But I didn’t know–”

Steve laughed, “Oh, yes. Okay, the jig is up.”

Foster blinked at him. “Everyone knows, don’t they? I’m just the idiot.”

Steve grinned, “You’re no idiot, Doc.”

“Oh, please call me Jane,” she covered her face with her hands. “Everyone keeps referring to me as Doctor Foster and it’s like they’re talking about someone else. Some smart old white guy who’s been around the block.”

“If I call you Jane, you gotta call me Steve,” he murmured gently.

She uncovered her face and eyeballed him. “I can’t do _that!_ You’re a venerated war hero and Captain America!”

“And you’re a multi-PhD-carrying linguistic professor who happens to be creating a form of communication with a new lifeform,” he retorted.

“Ugh,” she huffed, “Fine. Steve it is.”

He couldn’t help grinning. “You had another question?”

“I did?” she blinked.

He tilted his head in amusement.

“Oh!” Foster nodded. “Yes. I was wondering, um, the Heptapod language, the symbols. I keep…thinking about them. I know it’s my _job_ , but I was wondering…” she chewed her lip and appeared lost in thought.

“Jane?” Steve said, leaning forward in the cramped space.

She blinked, then shook her head. “Um, do you–are you–do you have dreams about the visitors?”

Steve thought about that before answering. “I don’t…think so?” he said. Flashes of a hospital room, and cigarettes, and lavender sprigs wrapped in brown paper crossed his mind.

“No?” she deflated. “Okay. I don’t know if what I’m dreaming is real or imagined, is all,” she said. “It’s … all of it is very confusing. I don’t know if other people are feeling it.”

“Well,” Steve said, “Of all of us, I think you have the closest connection to them, right? You’re actually learning the language, unlike me.”

Steve had noticed the way Foster wasn’t relying on the digital tablet alphabet whenever the aliens drew a symbol in front of her. He would bet his motorcycle on the fact that she was actively reading and understanding more than the rest of them. Her eyes always flicked and read and scoured every symbol that appeared during the Events, and in the debriefs, she’d stare at them some more.

“Um,” Foster tilted her head, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you are also picking up more, Steve,” she said his name carefully, like she was unsure. “We humans can tolerate a lot of visual stimulus. And now that I realize you’re pumped full of that serum business, I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually retain more information than the rest of us.”

Steve snorted, “Yeah, no. Sorry to disappoint, but I can’t read that stuff. It’s all squiggles and blobs.”

Jane laughed, her nose crinkling.

It was nice to see her smile.

 

* * *

 

 

When she left, Steve felt a sort of quiet settle over him. Maybe he wasn’t alone in this. Everyone was going through so much. He just needed to reevaluate, perhaps.

He went to get washed up. He washed his hair, scrubbed himself clean and shaved his face in the shower, grateful that his stomach wasn’t revolting this time.

He was up earlier than expected. It was dark outside and he wasn’t meant to call in for another couple hours.

So he decided to take a walk.

He did this sometimes: loping off into the fields and tromping around in the Montana wild. It was refreshing. There were thin tracks worn through the grass. Quite a few agents and teams liked to run their training through here. There was a lot more going on here outside of Steve’s personal problems.

A sound caught his attention.

Shit, who was out here in the dark unsupervised? If it was another brave journalist hellbent on getting a front-page exposé, Steve was having none of it.

He followed his ears and came around an outcropping of boulders.

Someone was bent over, puking into the grass.

“Oh, jeez,” Steve exhaled, recognizing the figure, and walked faster.

“Soldier,” he said automatically.

The man in the darkness stood up hastily, twisted and backed off.

“Whoa, big guy,” Steve stopped and put his hands up. Agent Winter was holding something sharp, something he whipped out from his person. “Is that a knife?”

Winter was breathing heavily. Steve could only just make out his angry, sweaty features in the dim light.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked.Winter wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “You’ve been sick.”

“Can’t–” Winter huffed, then growled, frustration bubbling up in his voice. “Can’t time meals right.”

Steve lowered his hands and the Russian did the same. “What do you mean?”

Winter was breathing heavily, obviously overcoming the aftermath of vomiting his guts up. “Always getting sick. Can’t eat at the right time, can’t keep it down.”

Oh.

Steve approached, side-stepping the mess he’d made. “You mean…you’re still getting sick after every Event?”

Winter nodded, eyes glaring at Steve through his long hair.

“But you’ve been telling medical you aren’t sick?” Steve said. “I heard you when we got out earlier.”

Winter stood at his full height and sheathed his blade in a holster somewhere about his hip. Steve made a mental note to scan the man’s uniform in daylight. SHIELD uniforms were customized to their users’ needs but hell if Steve had ever seen a uniform, dupe or not, that had weapons hidden that well. He certainly hadn’t noticed any secret stashes in either Russians’ uniforms.

“I don’t like medical,” Winter said roughly, a tinge of an accent bleeding through. “They have needles and drugs.”

“Right,” Steve said. “They do, yes.”

Winter breathed in shallowly. “I feel better now.” He was clearly lying through his teeth.

“So,” Steve sighed and rubbed at his own mouth, thinking. “You’ve been trying to…offset the sickness?”

“Yes,” Winter murmured. “I tried eating before the Event, then after. Still vomiting. It’s not good…for me.”

“Shit,” Steve said. “I’ve been doing the same. Doesn’t seem to matter when I eat, I always get sick.”

Winter made a sharp noise. “Frustrating!”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Hey, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“I’m hungry,” Winter said slowly.

“All right, then let’s get you fed, too.”

Winter remianed where he was.

“You coming?” Steve pressed. “Let’s just grab food to go. I know a spot. C’mon.”

Steve was sure the agent was glaring at his back, but he smiled when he heard footsteps following him through the brush.

 

* * *

 

“You steal vehicles often?” agent Winter murmured.

Steve looked over at the man in the passenger seat. “I didn’t _steal_ it. I borrowed it. Plus, I’m a Captain. I do what I want.”

Winter snorted. “You are an idiot.”

Steve laughed, loud and sharp into the early morning. The sun would be rising soon, but they had time.

He pulled the Jeep over onto a hillock and shut it off, yanking the handbrake. It squealed a bit.

“Don’t break it,” Winter said.

The top of the Jeep was still folded back, giving them an unobstructed view of the misty darkness. They never got to see the stars out here.

Steve had done this only a couple times before, yoinking a car and hiding out in the fields. He’d actually first done so with Hill, who sometimes needed a place to vent about the idiocy of the World Security Council or whomever else was driving her nuts.

It wasn’t too far from camp, anyone could spot the Jeep. But it was far enough to dim the buzz of the many agents and soldiers milling about in the plastic walls. Steve didn’t think it bothered everyone else because they had standard human ears. If only he was that lucky.

The quiet of nature settled upon them.

Way down the hill sat the ominous shadow of the alien pod ship, silent and unmoving as always.

Winter handed Steve his pilfered Greek chicken and veg from the mess hall.

Angela behind the counter was kind, and probably a little soft on Steve, so she had slipped them a couple plastic containers of food. No one ate outside of the mess. No one but them, it seemed.

The two of them ate in silence, gnawing into a pile of food each. The plastic forks were weak and bendy but they got the job done.

“’S good, huh?” Steve said through a mouthful of rice and potato.

Winter grunted in response, more intent on his food than on Steve’s messy smalltalk.

It was odd, for sure, but Steve wasn’t one to give a damn.

Maybe it was Rumlow, pushing the envelope with Steve. After all, Steve was the type of person who, when told not to do something, always vehemently retaliated by doing the opposite. It got him into so much trouble as a kid, but it hadn’t failed him yet. Maybe that part inside of him was what drove him to give a chance, a moment to this strange Russian agent.

Maybe it was something else?

Winter was…intriguing. He and Red were such an atypical duo that Steve marveled at their synchronicity. The Russians very obviously could read one another like instruction manuals. More than once Stee had seen them communicate with signals and code words. It was as if they’d worked together long enough that even their tics and nuanced behaviour was enough to hold a conversation.

Then again, that was a bad sign if these two were colluding against the U.S. Government. Steve was shaky on the info, but he relied on Hill’s judgment for things like this. When Steve had approached her about Rumlow’s information, she hadn’t been fazed at all.

“They’re with us, Rogers,” she’d said curtly. “I vetted them myself. You’re going to get nothing else out of me, but I stand by my choice.”

He poked and prodded Hill some more, feeding her facts from Rumlow’s file.

The USB had been chock full of various documents and mission reports from multiple agencies across the globe. A lot of it had been redacted, but what he could read wasn’t at all good. None of it bode well and Hill certainly didn’t try to refute it, so why was Steve still uncertain? If Hill wasn’t denying the horrifying intel then what did she know that Rumlow didn’t? The only thing she’d been interested in was how Steve had come across the dockets on both Russians. Steve could play mum as long as he needed and Hill knew it.

“You trust me as far as I trust you,” he’d said.

But Hill hadn’t buckled in the least.

And here he was, sitting in an army vehicle eating roast chicken and rice with none other than the man the world’s secret agencies called a ghost.

“I read up on you,” Steve murmured, wiping at his mouth.

Winter didn’t stop chewing. He was staring out the windhsield.

Steve pushed on. “You’ve, uh, you’ve done a lot. For Russia, I mean.”

Winter nodded.

“They call you the Winter Soldier, don’t they?” Steve said slowly.

Winter paused, then swallowed. He turned to look at Steve. “They did.”

Steve looked at him. The barest hint of sunrise was peeking through the mist, allowing him to see more of the man’s face.

“Fury and Hill, they think you’re just another Russian agent, don’t they?”

Winter didn’t say a word.

“But you work for Hydra,” Steve said. “You’ve always worked for them.” Even the mention of the hateful organization would bring bile to Steve's throat. Reading the data Rumlow had given him had made Steve sick. Hydra was destroyed in DC. All its operatives had been hunted into the ground. Cells were destroyed, people were arrested. It should all have been over. Steve had seen to that. Coming across anything Hydra  _now_ was unheard of.

The other man stiffened, brows furrowing.

“I…” he said, then swallowed. Steve noticed the way his hands were clenching into fists. “I am not Hydra.”

“That’s not what my intel says,” Steve murmured. He’d been expecting a fight, maybe he’d wanted one. Lord knows his temper was continuously being kept in line with SHIELD's operative expectations. The Russian hadn't hit him yet. Strange, really. If Steve had been accused of being a part of Hydra, he would have decked someone.

“Your intel is old,” Winter hissed.

Steve watched him. Winter's blue eyes glared back, bright and unquestionably sharp.

“Then why are you and Red hiding this from Hill?” Winter chewed his lip and looked away.

“We did not hide it,” he said. “I did not.”

“So agent Red did?” Steve frowned. “How far is she willing to go to cover your ass? You have to be honest with me, your Captain. I can’t trust you on my team if I don’t have all the facts.”

“You don’t know anything,” Winter said harshly. He glared at Steve and shit, he looked… _beautiful_ like that as the sun crested over the horizon. Soft pinks and oranges flitted over his features and Steve swallowed.

What the _hell?_

“I can’t work with people who are lying to me,” Steve said.

“I have not lied,” Winter retorted. “You don’t know anything because you don’t ask.”

“And I’m supposed to just let you up into that damn alien spaceship with my team and yet you can’t tell me shit about why you’re even here.”

“I didn’t ask to fuck around with damn aliens,” Winter said sharply. “I was not given the option to say no.”

Steve paused, considering that. “But you work for Russia.”

“Like I said,” Winter growled, slamming his food container shut. “Your intel is old.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

The two men stared out at the rising sun as it split into a wave of colour.

“You don’t get to speak for me, no one does,” Winter said, his words clipped. He looked at Steve. “I … I speak for myself.” He sounded as if he was attempting to convince not just Steve.

Steve breathed out slowly. He’d gone about this inquiry all wrong. It was barely hours ago that Rumlow’s intel had been brought to his attention and he was already jumping on the Russian; _Alone and without provocation,_ he added internally, which wasn’t fair. Divide and conquer wasn’t really Steve’s M.O. Not to mention how unsafe and unsanctioned this was. What if Winter pulled a weapon on him? What if he’d dug into the wrong conspiracy and hit a landmine instead of a goldmine?

“You trust commander Hill, yes?” Winter murmured. He was still holding his takeout container in his lap. His plastic fork was bent in half. He carefully closed the lid, hiding the utensil and the remaining uneaten food inside.

“Absolutely,” Steve said. He meant it too.

Winter stared down at his lap, his hands flexing ever so slightly. His gloves were soft with leather finger and palm pads; unique operative-grade gear. 

“I trust her too,” Winter said, his voice dipped low. “I didn’t want to.” He stared out over the dark green hillside and exhaled, his chest expanding and deflating. He turned his head to look at Steve. “Sometimes, Captain, we get few choices. I get even fewer.”

Steve watched him, curious. He furrowed his brows.

Winter went on. “Ro–” he cleared his throat, “Agent Red convinced me we would be safe with SHIELD. I didn’t know this was an alien mission.”

“Romanova,” Steve said bluntly. “I know her name. Natalia Alianovna Romanova.” Agent Winter glanced up, eyes wide. “The Black Widow.” Steve said. He caught the consternation in Winter’s face, the way his features crinkled and struggled to hold back whatever he was thinking.

“That is not a secret,” Winter muttered.

“Well, it is to the rest of this secretly sanctioned government base,” Steve said. “I wasn’t told.” He smiled, “Though that might be because I’m not the kind to dig too deep. Something I need to work on, it seems. Even my commander doesn’t trust me.”

“You trust too easily,” Winter grunted. He pushed his takeout container onto the dashboard until it rested against the windscreen.

“Actually, quite the opposite,” Steve murmured. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“You shouldn’t,” Winter nodded slowly.

“But I should trust you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Steve paused, then scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. 

His jaw clenched as he considered the other man's words. Something gnawed at him, something with long, sharp teeth, somewhere deep inside his cavernous chest. It scratched at his insides, his insecurities, his instinct to be wary. He had no reason whatsoever to trust the Russian and yet when he looked at Winter, looked straight into those pale, but sharp eyes that were filled with anger, he could feel the creature within him already taking sides, tail twitching. His gut was screaming at him to follow.

He hadn't sat on this thought for long but realized very quickly that if he wanted answers, if he wanted the truth, then he had to dig. No matter how forgiving and lenient Hill and Fury were about his reckless autonomy, Steve knew they would keep him at arm's length if national security dictated so. 

He was a few levels higher than the average agent but he wasn't at the top of this particular food chain.

The muscles in Winter’s jaw twitched as he looked out the passenger window. The more Steve took him in, the more he noticed some kind of toll wearing on Winter's face. He had dark shadows under his eyes, darker than before. He ate a lot, Steve had noticed, but it was as if none of that nutrition could stay long enough to fill out his cheeks. The man was built big and strong, but he had no softness to his features, only sharp angles and a furrowed brow.

Steve expected the man to have bloodshot eyes but somehow Winter's gaze was clear, the sclera a bright white. That, in Sarah Rogers’ book always hinted at good health. So maybe there was something else going on; A missing thread to tie this all up.

Maybe the guy just needed rest and a good meal he could hold down.

Maybe Steve needed to to fucking listen for once and not just barrel his way into an already uncomfortable situation. The world was teetering on a precipice of anarchy as yet unseen and Steve’s mission here in Montana was to find answers, not to squabble and take digs at foreign operatives. They just didn’t have the time.

“You said my intel is old,” he said matter-of-factly. “How old?” 

 

* * *

Steve pulled the Jeep up to the parking area and cranked the handbrake, the engine rumbled to a stop.

There were shouts.

“Captain! Commander Hill has been looking for you!” Lieutenant Prost ran up to them, saluting awkwardly.

Steve noticed the way the soldier averted his eyes from Winter.

He glanced at the Russian and they nodded, exiting the Jeep swiftly, leaving the keys with the lieutenant.

They found a crowd of agents and soldiers pushing and shoving to get into the main presentation tent where all major updates were announced.

Steve did his best to squeeze past but realized people weren’t moving fast enough.

He did the only thing he could think of and reached back through the mass of bodies, grabbed Winter’s forearm and pulled him along. He didn’t use half as many ‘pardons’ or ‘excuse me’s as he’d like, but something was going down and he needed to be up front.

The crowd parted for them when they realized who it was.

“Captain,” Hill nodded curtly, then came in closer and hissed, “Where the _hell_ have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere.”

“Does it matter?” he said hastily, yanking Winter up with him and releasing his hold just as quickly. Winter seemed confused but upon seeing Red, he straightened up and moved to stand with her, back straight, hands behind him.

Steve stared up at the main display screen.

News reels flashed from all over the world it seemed, all of them showing recorded footage of a man talking at a podium, fist banging down hard against the wood.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

When he turned, he finally got a good look at the crowd in the tent. Every seat was filled and all standing room was taken.

Hell, it looked like every able operativewas here, watching the news.

“All right,” Hill barked, making a few rookies jump. “Now that everyone is here, we can conclude this briefing.”

Steve sniffed and tried to step back but found he too was hemmed in by Jane’s science squad. They seemed so small and young, the kids. They also looked extremely worried, hidden away in the corner.

“The Russian government has spoken out, as we’ve all seen.” Hill said. Silence fell over the gathered crowd. “They’ve set forth their ultimatum. We have forty-eight hours to answer.”

“Wait, what?” Steve said.

Hill shushed him. “As you all saw, the Russian President has made a push to the Chinese to cooperate and it looks as though that has worked in his favour. We had hoped throughout these negotiations that China would step back to work with us, but that is not the case anymore. We have two active nuclear-proficient nations declaring a strategic deadline for our alien visitors.”

 _Fuck_. Steve turned to glance at the news reels again. Talking heads jabbered in every language imaginable, and all of them were obviously talking about the same thing.

“We cannot risk nuclear powers taking such a step. As such, you may be reassigned within the next two hours. The United States stands with the EU on grounds that the aliens have not done anything wrong.”

Steve didn’t miss the muttered _‘yet’_ coming from somewhere. He peered over the crowd.

Hill went on as if not hearing, “As such, we abide by the law of grievances and we do not condone nuclear-grade weapons warfare against an assumed, not proven enemy who, as yet, is not able to communicate with us and give us reason to react.”

Murmuring broke out over the agents and soldiers.

“Hey! Listen!” Hill snapped. “We don’t have time to mess around. Those of you reassigned will be herded back to the nearest base and resituated for next orders. As of right now, we do not need the U.S. Army on this base. Field operatives, working staff, Event Crew and admin will remain. The rest will be moved out. Vehicles are on the way and this base will be emptied out as required.”

“Why?” came a voice.

More voices. “Yeah, we ain’t got time–”

“What’re we supposed to–”

“We are here for a purpose, in case you’ve forgotten,” Hill pressed on. “If you cannot understand the gravity of our mission now, then perhaps its best you shouldn’t be here.”

Her words were cold. Steve felt a shiver run through him.

“If you have grievances with the administration, take it up with HR,” she snapped. “Now get going, all of you. Command leaders, I expect a full update on the hour.”

“Yes, sir,” came a few hollow responses.

“Right, get gone!” Hill clapped her hands. The crowd burst into noise and the mass exodus got going.

“Jesus, what the hell?” Rumlow came up to Hill, his team staying put. “We’re being moved out?”

“Not you,” Hill said. “STRIKE Team Alpha stays put.”

“Why?” Rumlow pressed. “We’re gonna do what, exactly? Serve the invaders tea?”

“They’re not invaders,” Jane piped up from behind Steve. “To invade would require the taking of land, property and ownership rights.”

Rumlow rolled his eyes, “General, seriously though, we need to prepare for the inevitable, here. Let my team set up an infiltration and takedown procedure. We got time.”

“Absolutely not,” Hill responded. “You’ve been given your orders. You will continue to assist the scientists and Event Team on their mission.”

Rumlow looked like he had something else to say, judging by the way he ground his teeth.

Steve watched the man, noting the twitch in his lips, the madness in his eyes. He wasn’t one to break orders, but it was there, itching to break free, just under the surface.

“Just so it’s clear,” Rumlow said, waving his hand at his team. “We do not like this.”

“It’s not your job to like what you do,” Hill said. “It’s your job to follow through. Now get going.”

“This is bullshit,” Rumlow said. His team murmured assent. “We need to be the ones to do it, not them!” he pointed at Red and Winter. “The fuckin’ Russians know what’s up and they’re gonna take the glory for this, you know that, right?”

“We are not doing anything,” Red piped up.

Rumlow rounded on her. “I never trusted you, you dirty little–” he advanced on her and before Steve could gasp out a warning, she retaliated.

Red grabbed Rumlow’s wristand _moved_. Within half a second, Rumlow was face-down on the canvas tarp flooring with Red’s foot pressed to his spine, his arm pulled back tight behind him. He roared and twisted, only to find her boot heel digging into a nerve.

The STRIKE squad got to their feet but was held off by Hill’s sharp yell.

“Enough!”

She marched over to Red, “Let him up, agent.”

Red seemed to ponder that for a moment before she released his arm and stepped back, unbothered.

Rumlow got to his feet, growling. “You fucking–”

“Agent Rumlow,” Hill said, “You have your orders. Get out before I decide your next mission is to walk back to Fargo and keep an eye on the airport.”

“You can’t be serious about trusting them,” Rumlow growled, eyes wide. “We’re loyal. We’re the ones you need!”

“Out,” Steve said, stepping forward. “You heard the commander.”

Rumlow blinked up at him. “Fuck, Cap, really?”

“Now,” Steve said, voice steely, eyes hard.

Rumlow hissed, shaking his head, but waved for his team to follow. “Got it,” he grumbled, making eye contact again. He watched Steve like he was trying read him, trying to see something there. “Orders is orders.”

Steve didn’t miss the way Winter narrowed his eyes at Rumlow as the STRIKE team exited the now mostly empty tent.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Hill murmured, tapping away at her phone, probably giving Fury the update.

“What is?” Steve said, turning his whole body to face her.

“How the minute a man speaks up, he listens,” Red cut in.

Steve exhaled. “Damnit.”

“Uh huh,” Jane said, coming up to stand beside Steve. She looked pensive. “We’re in a pickle, aren’t we?” she added.

The small group looked at one another. Hill nodded. “Crunch time, team. We’ve got work to do.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s so weird,” Sasha said, watching Steve work.

“Careful,” Kamala huffed, pushing Sasha out of the way of a parading troop of soldiers carrying equipment over their shoulders.

Massive loads of supplies were being packed up and carted out of the base in measured shipments.

“Are they all leaving?” Andy asked, watching them go.

“Only, uh, the soldiers, I think?” Sasha murmured.

“Yeah,” Steve said, he pushed at the metal bunk bed, sliding it into place without tearing the tarp floor. He shook it, testing its balance.

“Wow,” Sasha breathed, as he lifted it up again to reposition the frame. “You really _are_ strong as they say.”

Steve smiled and stood back.

“This should work for you all, right?”

He waved a hand at the two bunk beds set up in a single meeting tent that had been cleared out.

Winter appeared at the doorway, two single mattresses balanced on his head, held steady with his hands.

The students got out of his way.

He slid a mattress onto one bunk, then the other.

“Two more coming,” he murmured before leaving.

“He’s…strange,” Sasha said.

“Well, duh,” Kamala said, immediately moving to throw her duffle onto the top bunk with the mattress.

“So we’re all in here?” Sasha said. “Jane too?”

“Yes,” Steve sighed. “It’ll be better than the pup tents and you’ll get better rest, I think.”

“You too, though,” Sasha said, looking up at him. “Your tent is being set up too, right?”

“Yes, we’ll be just down the way,” Steve nodded.

Because this is what it came to: the Event Team had to stay close. They didn’t have time anymore for breaks or overlong meals. They needed to get through these last two events before Russia and China decided there was a better, more finite option available.

How they were planning to fulfill that was unclear as yet, but Steve wouldn’t put it past them to try and blast any and all alien spaceships out of the sky, regardless of what nation they floated above.

That’s the thing with nuclear warheads: they could travel pretty far from their origin and enact horrific damage on a scale not seen since the forties.

Steve had seen the images after Nagasaki and Hiroshima and he’d been privy to government documents regarding the rest. This was not something even he could survive, serum or not.

Hill said Fury was on the ground in Washington, guiding talks with the EU and Russia.

His other concern lay with any more nations thinking the nuclear route was the right option. They needed to preempt any government coercion or double-dealing.

Jane appeared at the tent opening.

“Which bunk’s mine?” she asked, throwing her stuff on the floor in the corner. It appeared she’d just dragged her blanket and sleeping bag across the base to this, the most isolated of the main tents.

Steve had watched as rolls of flooring, tarp and canvas were gathered up and hauled into trucks, ready for travel.

Certain portions of the base were being dismantled. The Army didn’t want to have to come back here, not if the real problems were outside, in the real world. Plus, the borders of Montana were being bombarded by the media and protest groups. It was all over the news. Crowds of civilians, tv crews and propoagandists were milling around the monitored borders yelling and demanding all kinds of things.

There were factions, groups of individuals demanding transparency about the aliens. What was the real purpose here? What was the government doing? Had contact been made? What was happening?

Websites popped up overnight declaring either that the aliens were here to destroy humanity or alternately, were here as earth’s new overlords and that humanity should surrender and bow to the new world leaders. ‘If we aren’t nice to the aliens, why would they spare humanity and earth?’ seemed to be the consistent message.

The nation was in an uproar, with schools and businesses shut down indefinitely. The looting and destruction of property was getting out of control and police and emergency units countrywide were being overwhelmed by the anarchists, the believers and the non-believers.

The last news piece Steve had read described the burning of religious monuments; churches, mosques, shuls, temples, even graveyards were being torn down and destroyed under the guise of ‘the apocalypse’. He personally thought some pockets of humanity thrived on such gruesome acts and when given the option, desecrated what they could before law or ethics came bearing down on them.

Yet here, in this base camp, nothing was like the outside world. It was a secure bubble.

A stress-filled and tensely monitored bubble, but it was light years safer than anywhere else in America.

“Where’s Andy?” Jane asked.

“Bathroom,” Sasha said.

Winter reappeared, true to his word, carrying two more mattresses.

“Where’d these come from, anyway?” Kamala asked, following him to the bunk beds.

Winter shrugged, “Storage.”

She seemed fascinated by him, watching as he tossed one mattress onto the remaining empty top bunk.

Winter nodded at Jane and made to leave.

Steve caught his elbow. Winter looked at him then.

“We need to eat. Can you get agent Red?”

“Not hungry,” Winter murmured.

Steve stared back at him. “Fine. Then we meet in the mess _anyway_ for a debrief.” He made a pointed expression.

Winter scowled.

“You boys okay?” Jane said, watching them.

“Fine,” Winter yanked his arm free and Steve blinked. He stared down at his own hand. No one should have been able to do that.

He frowned and looked into Winter’s eyes. “You’re gonna have to explain that, soldier.”

 

* * *

 

As expected, the mess hall was deserted. Only one cook stood in the makeshift kitchen, washing dishes while humming to himself.

“You called?”

Steve looked up to find Agents Red and Winter approaching the table where he sat.

“Have a seat,” he murmured.

Red didn’t seem to mind the impromptu meeting and slid onto a bench.

Winter sat down beside her, eyes down.

“You didn’t tell her?” Steve said, voice level.

Red peered at them, “About what?”

“Rumlow’s information,” Steve sighed, thinking how he’d have to go right back to the beginning and explain himself.

“Oh, _that_ ,” Red waved her hand, unperturbed at being turned in by a SHIELD agent. “Not a concern.”

“Well, I disagree,” Steve said. He twined his fingers into a closed fist and rested them on the table. “I know a lot more now, but there are gaps, _Natalia._ ”

At that, her eyes sharpened and her nostrils flared.

She turned to Winter and uttered a barrage of Russian. Winter shrugged and answered in a softer tone, his words a rumble.

Red’s eyes flared with anger, something Steve had never seen before. She said something else, something that made Winter wince.

“Hey, it’s not his fault,” Steve interjected. “I got your name from Rumlow. He dug deep, okay?”

Red turned to look at him, her mouth a flat line.

“ _My_ name?”

Steve nodded, thinking maybe he’d done this wrong _again._

“Well, no, but after Rumlow’s notes I decided to do some of my own sleuthing.” Steve puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly. “I’m starting to get why you guys cover your backs so much. There are things out there, datasets that probably no one person has all access to, but are out there, being collected and compiled.”

“You matched our data to _what_ exactly?” Red asked. Ever the spy, she didn’t want to give anything up, but would still dig around for her own records.

“Most of what Rumlow had was redacted,” Steve went on. “Your information was widely available, once I got looking,” he nodded at Red. “You go by Natasha in English, correct? Natasha Romanov? The Black Widow herself.”

Red sat back and eyed him. “There is more than one Black Widow, _Captain._ Everybody knows that.”

He smiled, “Of course.”

“The Black Widows are not a secret,” Red said. “Russia is very proud of their Red Room operation.”

“Sure,” Steve agreed, “There are, or have been many Black Widows over the decades. But you are the last one, which is impressive, I think.”

Her face was impassive, giving no sign of emotion.

“And you defected,” Steve said. “That’s what’s really important here, isn’t it? You defected once you got your chance. You landed on American soil and met with the head of SHIELD operations and just like that,” he snapped his fingers, “you’re out from under Russian control.”

Red didn’t say a word.

“I understand,” Steve said, sitting upright. He looked around the empty mess. “I would probably do the same thing if my life had only revolved around assassinations and subterfuge.” He smiled wanly.

Red glanced at Winter, who was watching Steve.

“So what now?” Red pushed, “You going to do something about me?”

Steve smiled. “No, not at all. I just wanted to confirm. I do actually think Hill and Fury trust you. No idea how you wrangled that, but they do.”

“So then why tell me this?” she said.

“Well,” Steve watched her carefully. “I can understand why _you_ defected on your own. What I don’t understand, is why you did it _now?_ Why now and not a year ago, or five years ago?”

Steve watched her face for signs of anything outside of carefully projected disinterest.

Winter spoke, his voice deep and dry, muttering under his breath.

Steve frowned. He had never learned Russian. Wait, _had_ he? Somehow, the words Winter uttered sounded familiar, as if he’d heard them many times before.

Red turned to Winter, her face darkened by emotion. Anger.

“You _escaped_ ,” Steve said, eyes going wide.

Both agents turned to him, eyebrows going up.

“You speak Russian?” Winter gasped.

“Uh, no, no,” Steve shook his head. “At least, I don’t think so?” He rubbed at his temple.

Red’s eyes followed him.

She said something. Slow and deliberate and very much in Russian.

“Он думает что ты Симпатичный”

Winter hissed and smacked at her arm but she didn’t avert her eyes from Steve.

“Uh,” Steve frowned. “I don’t know what you said.”

Winter’s face was pink for some reason. Maybe Red made a dirty joke?

She watched Steve, eyes flicking over his features, carefully checking for signs of lying.

“You didn’t _defect_ ,” Steve said, coming back to the topic at hand. “You escaped. Why the difference in wording?”

“We _defected._ I did,” Red murmured. “This information is true. And apparently freely available.” She rolled her eyes.

“No, that’s not true,” Steve shook his head. “Not even Rumlow’s intel mentioned that. My digging deeper didn’t turn up anything like that either. As far as the intelligence community is concerned, you are still an effective, working operative for Russia.”

She paused, mouth opening and closing. Then realization made her eyes widen and she turned to Winter.

“You,” she murmured. “You told him? Why?”

“Because, Natalia,” Winter sighed, “we need to trust. We need to trust someone. Why not him?”

“Because he is the emblem of all America, that’s why!” she barked, losing her cool. She glared at Steve. “ _You_ do not understand. You will compromise him. Us.”

“I do understand, actually,” Steve said gently. His eyes flicked to Winter.

“James told me.”

Her eyes went so wide he could see the bright flecks of green in her blue irises. He wasn’t supposed to know this.

“He told me everything,” Steve murmured. “Well, not _everything._ ” Steve leaned over and tapped at Winter’s arm where it rested on the table. It felt hard, solid and not even remotely like a human limb. “You left this detail out.”

Winter glanced at Red, who still seemed shocked. He then tugged at his glove. Her hand shot out.

“You show him , you tell him everything and they…they will not save you. He will not.”

“I know,” Winter murmured. “It’s okay. I’m tired of hiding.”

He yanked off the glove and twisted the metal hand that appeared. Steve blinked.

It was beautifully crafted, smooth and panelled perfectly to allow precise finger movement.The fingers flexed and moved, making the metal plates shift and rotate.

“That’s…vibranium…” Steve said, “Isn’t it?”

“Possible,” Winter shrugged.

“How far does it go?” Steve asked.

Winter tapped the edge of his right hand against his left collarbone. Steve winced. “Jesus.”

“Fist of Hydra,” Winter murmured. "Russia does not know."

“No,” Red cut in. She looked at Steve. “We are not Hydra.”

“I know,” Steve said. Then his gaze softened. “Natasha, I know. I know what you did.”

She tensed and frowned, her eyes flashing, “You don’t know anything.”

“I know that you two worked together for a long time. You’ve both been around for a while. What I didn’t know, or maybe didn’t understand, was why _now?_ ” He smiled. “Why defect, why escape,” he looked at Winter, “Now?”

Both Russians stayed silent.

“You could have left at any time,” he went on. “But something was stopping you? Help me to understand.”

“Natalia,” Winter, no, _James_ , said. “We need to trust him.”

“Don’t–” she said, but he kept speaking.

“I was under Hydra control,” Winter said. “I always have been.” He winced, “They…wipe my mind. They erase my memories. They do it every mission. Every time.”

“What?” Steve frowned. “What? How?”

“Electric-shock to the pre-frontal lobe,” Winter tapped his forehead. “And the…uh.” He turned to Red with a frown on his face.

“The temporal lobe,” she added softly. "His long-term memory."

Winter nodded, “But I keep remembering. So they lock me away for years at a time. Natalia is all I ever remember.”

“Jesus,” Steve murmured and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “That’s torture. That’s inhumane. Why do they do it? What soldier of any kind, is worth that?”

Winter shrugged, “I am very good at what I do.” The insinuation was clear. What was better than a covert assassin? An assassin that forgets.

Steve pondered that, his stomach swirling. No one, not even a military superpower has the right to torture anyone. And what kind of soldier is so important?

“But why now?” he asked softly, sounding like a broken record. He looked at Red.

She stared back.

“ _You_ decided, didn’t you? You decided it was time,” Steve said.

She blinked. Then nodded. “We were in America for the first time in years,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Infiltration. Information-gathering. Hydra masquerading inside the Kremlin. That was the mission.”

“Then the aliens came, huh?” Steve murmured.

She nodded. “Suddenly the world’s attention was drawn away and we get told our mission has changed. As the only operatives in America right now, we go in, infiltrate SHIELD. Surrender as Russian intel operatives on the side of humanity, or whatever.”

“Uh huh.”

She sighed and tilted her head, thinking. “But I knew about Fury. I heard a lot through the networks that he would jump for Hydra informants. Before, it wasn’t an option. Life was good. I am good at what I do, you see? I get paid very well, Captain.”

“I’m sure you do.”

She shrugged.

“So what changed?” Steve asked.

She looked at Winter.

“I realized something very important,” she murmured.

Steve swallowed, imagining the impending romantic declaration. It wasn’t a terrible reason to defect. Love. Love was more than enough sometimes.

“I realized this would be the last time we get the chance to save him.” Her eyes were soft as she looked at Winter. “He deserves it more than me.”

“But surrendering to SHIELD only guarantees you safety so long as this mission is in effect,” Steve said. “What makes you think your timing is best now?”

“Because,” Red murmured. “James, unlike myself, would be afforded actual due process, I think. He has a better chance here for a fair trial with access to legal help than anywhere else. I, as a Russian double-crossing Hydra operative don’t deserve time, trials or opportunities. But he does.”

“Because…?”

She turned to Steve, her gaze hard.

“I’m not going to bore you with platitudes, Captain. I want to help him because for once in my life, I want to be proud of something I’ve done. He would never make the move himself. Why? Because they treat him like a dog. To be punished and let loose and punished again. Unlike me, James never had a choice. He is not a monster, not the way they want you to think.”

Steve watched her.

She stared back, hard as ice and even less forgiving. “This is the only place he can be free of Hydra. The only place that will give him a chance, whether the government likes it or not.”

“And why is that?” Steve asked.

She paused before saying, “Because James is American and I am not.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> Он думает что ты cимпатичный - "He thinks you're pretty"
> 
> Thank you silentwalrus for always being the Russian check champ on discord.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve was reeling.

James was _American?_ But how?

“You _knew,_ ” he said, barging into whatever briefing Hill was in at that moment.

She looked up over the heads of the small crew seated in front of her and frowned. “Captain Rogers, I’m currently–”

“No, we need to talk _now_ ,” Steve barked.

The agents all turned in their seats and more than one of them had wide eyes and mouths falling open.

Hill’s own eyes hardened, “Captain Rogers, you can _wait_ for me outside. I won’t be long.”

Steve was about to blurt out more ragingly explicit sounds but realized what this looked like. He would be just another big, boorish male operative demanding his commander’s attention.

_Fuck,_ he could wait _ten_ minutes!

He stormed out of the tent, closing the plastic flap behind him, wishing not for the first time that it were a solid door he could slam like a petulant child.

He paced up and down the corridor, one of the last left over from the base deconstruction.

Almost seventy percent of the tarps and canvas walls and floors were gone, leaving openings here and there where anyone could walk out into the Montana wild.

_Damn._ He paced some more, mouth twisting, mind tripping over itself.

After grilling Red and Winter, he’d gathered enough information to make his head explode. He could see what Natasha was seeing: an American citizen brought home as a POW. A POW would be privy to protections not given to outsiders. How the fucking hell had this alien linguistic mission turned into this?

Steve chewed his lip and rubbed at his chin with the palm of his hand. James was going to go up against a lot more than the judicial court system. He was going to meet face-to-face with a fucking war tribunal, especially once his records were leaked (and they were most definitely going to find their way onto the dark net and be freed). 

Steve got it, he really did. But seeing the American government as a safer haven compared to Russia was only true in this one instance where James had been tortured for more than a lifetime under motherfucking _Hydra,_ the lone unifying deterrent for all governments.

He wasn’t sure if there was really much distinction in the federal book of law when it came to expats and the rarely-read hefty chapter on espionage. Steve wasn’t any sort of legal eagle but he figured the courts were not going to look fondly on James, regardless of birthright. He’d killed so many people, if the unredacted stuff Steve had dug up was true.

Surely James and Natasha knew this? Were they both just being willfully ignorant? Or was there something else on the table?

An agent squeezed past, making Steve jump. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he forgot there were other people here, still working around the clock for the next Event.

Speaking of which, Rumlow had been out in the field earlier with members of his STRIKE team. They’d been dragging what looked to be more gear over to the Jeep, probably for transport to the pod. Steve looked at his watch.

Shit, the next Event was fast approaching. Technically, they only had two left before Russia pressed the big red nuclear button, or whatever hell they had in mind. Fascinating that the government hadn’t been explicit in its detailing of what would follow. Typical politicians, holding out on actual information.

Steve hadn’t met the Russian president, though he’d met many other world leaders in his Captain America travels. He wished he could do something about the man, but Russia wasn’t as fond of Cap as the USA was, naturally.

The whole superhero persona wore thin on most government agencies. Steve grasped that in much the same way that the persona grated at his own personhood.

Cap was a tool to get stuff done. He was an employee of SHIELD, an agent, an operative.

Steve Rogers, however, was a flesh and blood man put on this earth and trained by Sarah Rogers to kick in teeth and bandage wounds on any and all who needed it.

Another agent walked by.

“Cap,” she nodded.

“Agent,” he nodded back. Thirteen had, of course, stayed on. She was one of Hill’s best, so it made sense she’d be kept back with the General.

The tent flap opened up and the small group of agents within wandered out, talking amongst themselves.

The translators. Were they the only ones left? Steve frowned. A team of over twenty…gone? Surely not.

Steve blinked when Hill materialized in front of him. He had the decency to look chagrined, but steeled himself for the oncoming argument.

“Captain, follow me,” she went back inside the tent.

Steve did as he was told.

“Have you calmed down?” she said, walking over to her seat at the front. All the screens were black, so it was just them.

“I’m…” Steve cleared his throat. “I’m here to talk about the deal you made with Agent Winter.”

Hill quirked a brow at him and hoisted her one foot up to rest on the chair in front of her.

“And?” she said.

Steve scowled, “You’re not even going to deny it, are you?”

“What am I supposed to deny?”

“That you made a secret agreement with two Russian agents of Hydra, one of whom is actually American, giving you far more leverage than either them could attain.”

Hill looked up at him, unfazed.

“Well?” Steve said, voice going loud. “You want to elaborate? Tell me what you’ve got planned for them?”

Hill watched him for a moment before folding her arms across her chest.

“So you’ve got all the answers, Cap, what now?”

Steve moved forward and sat down on a nearby chair. He leaned in to face her. “What are you doing with him? With them?”

Hill blinked. He knew what he looked like: all angry face and tight shoulders.

“Okay,” she sighed, “It’s not as…convoluted as you think.”

Steve’s lips hardened into a straight line, “But you kept this from me.”

“We had to,” Hill said. “It was part of the agreement that they be given a semblance of anonymity; give them time to work and show us their allegiance.”

“I’m surprised you even hired them at all,” Steve said.

Hill smiled, “Funny story: me too. Fury was hell-bent against it. Imagine these two rogue agents rock up to an undisclosed SHIELD operation claiming they’ve got intel on Hydra. You think Fury believed them? Hell no.” Hill sighed louder. “But Romanov, she’s a smart one. Mentions she’s got an American POW. Mentions his name. Apparently that was enough. They’d get an umbrella to stand under all the while assisting us.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Steve said drily. “I’ve seen agents get shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What gives?”

Hill nodded, “Aliens, Rogers,” and she deflated just enough for Steve to remember that Hill, as much of a stalwart leader she could be, was also a flesh and bone human trying to keep it together. “Aliens really fucked everything up, okay?” she went on. “Do you _know_ how many ops were dissolved, obliterated by the appearance of space ships in the sky? We’ve had operatives bail, mid-mission because _this_ –” she pointed skyward, “is enough to make folks reevaluate their life choices and bail on any and all operations.”

“Fury wants to be here but he can’t be,” she said. “He’s putting out more fires than either of us could imagine.” She licked her lips. “We were meant to be an outpost here, just keeping an eye on shit. Now look. We’ve got civilians involved, Russian spies playing nice and a fast-depleting armada of capable agents who can protect us from the oncoming shitstorm that is international interference.”

Steve blinked.

Hill smiled. “So I don’t really care if you know about Barnes and Romanov. I didn’t tell you, because it didn’t fucking matter, did it? We can use them. See how long they play loyal and then we’ll see. After all, who knows how much time we have left anyway?”

“You’re using them under the guise of helping them,” Steve said.

“Do you really think they don’t know that?” Hill squinted at him like he was an idiot. “The Black Widow strolls into this mess and you think she _doesn’t_ understand what’s happening? Your intel probably told you enough.”

Steve’s lips twisted. “What about James?”

Hill frowned, “You mean Barnes? What about him?”

“He’s American,” Steve bit out. “He was used by Hydra.”

Hill exhaled slowly, “Just to be clear: we don’t actually _know_ that.”

“Him being American?” Steve frowned.

“That and the torture,” Hill said. “Hell, we don’t even know if he _was_ Hydra. Anyone could walk in here with that sob story.”

Steve opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.

She was right.

What evidence had they given? What proved their experience, their affiliations? Nothing but the cobbled-together intel Steve had read second-hand.

His mind reeled.

“My point though,” Hill said, “Is that, Hydra or not, I am familiar with both operatives.”

Her gaze was hard and Steve inquired further.

“I’ve…tangled with the Black Widow before,” Hill said. “In Burma. Seems we were hunting the same smuggler, only she was going about it the right way.”

“The…right way?” Steve asked.

Hill smiled, “I was part of a midnight mission to infiltrate and capture. She’d been there for days already, pretending to be his belle. By the time we arrived, she’d already slit the bastard’s throat. I got a good kick to the face for trying to stop her fleeing.”

Going by her expression, one would think she thought of that memory fondly.

“And Barnes?” Steve murmured.

“We know him. He’s the Winter Soldier, Rogers,” Hill said sardonically. “We’ve been looking for him for decades. There’s only one crackshot Russian operative with a shiny metal arm. He’s…distinctive.”

Steve dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. “You knew all this time,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hill sighed. “Because it wasn’t _relevant_. It still isn’t.”

Steve looked up, feeling the tiredness in his bones. “They’re assassins,” he murmured. “How is that not relevant?”

Hill’s mouth twisted to the side in sympathy. She pointed to the sky.

“Why make me repeat myself? Because aliens, Rogers. _Aliens._ ”

“You paid for him,” Steve said, anger welling inside his head like an overfilled, boiling kettle. “You saw the opportunity to recruit the Winter Soldier and you took it.”

Hill didn't respond.

“I really shouldn't be surprised,” he muttered. “Why am I still surprised?” he threw his hands up.

Hill’s eyes remained as unreadable as ever. “It's because you keep working on that faith of yours.”

“Faith in what? God? SHIELD?”

“Hmm, no.” She paused. “Your faith in people. They break you down and you, for some reason, keep giving them a leg up. I mean, it's admirable. But maybe it's also one of those _flaws_ I keep hearing about. Apparently normal people are prone to them.”

Steve looked at her, reminding himself once again that she was his superior, maybe even his friend; but she was, at the end of the day, loyal to SHIELD, or at the very least, Fury. 

He admired Hill, always had. But perhaps he'd finally reached that point of no return where he needed to step back and review his options. Maybe that's what he should have done years ago, when Hill had pushed and _pushed_ him to take one high-risk mission after another. He should have been evaluating every request, every single time, but he'd been dead to the world for so long, why start trying _after_ coming out of the ice? He’d felt pathetic, he’d felt weak, backing down. Maybe he _was_ weak.

Steve lowered his gaze and sighed, deep and echoing in his chest. 

This feeling had been bobbing just beneath the surface, below the veneer of _Cap_.

Why it was crystallizing _now_ made zero sense to his tired mind. He must have allowed it, this weakness, fooled by the need to keep moving forward, to not stagnate in a world that had moved on without him. He'd let himself become like this. It was a choice, no matter what stories he spun for himself. Maybe that's what years of war and loneliness do to you: dry you up and hollow you out until you think you have no one left to trust.

 

* * *

Steve wandered the small base for a while, trying to make sense of all this new information.

He eventually found himself back at the tent where Jane and her squad would be housed. All four bunk beds were piled with each person’s belongings, but the squad was nowhere to be seen.

He walked further down the hall until the tarp flooring came to an abrupt end and his boots met wet grass.

Another line of tents stood tall. He walked along them, nodding at the senior agents left to their own devices. A handful of them had been rehoused as well, two or four to a tent.

He paused outside the second last tent. Red…no, _Romanov_ , _Natasha_ was inside. She sat on the second of two plain beds, reading a worn out paperback, its cover bent around the bulk of its pages as she held it with one hand.

She looked up when Steve paused outside the tent flap, his head bent low to see inside.

He nodded. She nodded back, then returned to her book.

So she was sleeping in here. Good to know.

Steve moved on. At least he knew where the Russians would be.

The tent at the end was his, apparently, though he’d asked a junior agent to prep it for him due to time constraints. It usually irked him, the way junior agents would jump at his every request, but right then it had come in handy, relieving him of giving a damn. This new-found antipathy for order was great. He sincerely hoped the stupid pup tent had been doused in gasoline and burned in effigy for his time inside its waterproof innards.

Upon reaching the final tent in the row, he pushed the loose canvas flap open. He paused in the doorway.

James was sitting on one of the two beds, staring at nothing.

Steve frowned.

_What the hell?_

James looked up from whatever daydream he was having.

“Uh,” Steve looked around. “Sorry, I thought this was my… place.” He finished awkwardly.

James nodded slowly. “It is. Mine too.” His voice was low, soft.

Steve blinked, “Oh. Uh, okay.”

James shrugged, “They ran out of room, I think. Not many beds to begin with. Plus, I hear they want someone to keep an eye on me?”

Hm. That wouldn’t be unheard of.

It was then Steve recognized his rolled up sleeping bag and duffel on the empty bed. His balled up socks were spilling from the bag. He wandered if the laundry facilities would still be up and running, now that the base was being trimmed to essentials. He knew the kitchen and full bathrooms would remain, but what of the laundry and maintenance?

His eyes roamed over the small space, noting a distinct lack of personal items on James’ side of the tent.

“Uh,” he fumbled, warring between wanting desperately to just lie down, even for a second, and wanting to turn about and head for the hills.

“You look like shit,” James said gruffly, eyes taking Steve in.

Steve laughed, a short bark erupting from his chest. “Yeah,,” he nodded, chuckling, “I bet. I feel like it.”

“You should rest,” James murmured. “I can…” he moved to sit up, then froze. “I can go?”

“No, no, don’t,” Steve waved him off. “It’s fine. I do need to rest. We got, what a few hours before the next Event, right?”

James nodded, eyes following Steve.

Steve walked over to the metal bed frame and thin mattress. “Oh, this looks like heaven,” he exhaled and rolled over onto the bed like a sack of cement. The frame creaked as he shifted. He grabbed at his duffel, shoving its lumpy mass under his head.

“You keep an eye out,” Steve sighed, closing his eyes. God, now that he was able to slow down, he could feel his body shutting off like an aged tractor after a long day of ploughing fields mindlessly.

“All right,” he heard James say before he felt his limbs sinking into sleep.

 

* * *

 

> _It’s like you’re blurry, fogged up and out of focus in my memory. I’m terrified of forgetting. I don’t want to lose your face, the feel of you._
> 
> _Even the way you smell. The scent of oranges and cigarettes are all that I ever need to bring you back to me._
> 
> _It’s like a punch to the gut, remembering, but I always want it, like an addict holding out until the inevitable._
> 
> _Because if it’s ever gone, I don’t know what I’d do with myself._
> 
> _I kept a pack of your cigarettes, five left inside. I tried smoking one, you know, like a damn fool. Fuck, I thought the smoking was what got you. I thought it would be cancer._
> 
> _But it had to be something deeper, didn’t it? Something the doctors couldn’t get around, couldn’t fix. It was something even I couldn’t change._
> 
> _The sickness was quick and you didn’t suffer half as much as I did, thank God. But it still had to happen, you had to go and leave me here, alone again._
> 
> _I get so mad about it. I wish I could tell you_ how _mad so you can hold me and tell me I’m overreacting as usual, that there’s no point winding myself up. But you’re not here anymore. And all I have are your fucking Marlboros._

 

* * *

Steve woke to the sound of whispers. His chest felt heavy and his heart was aching, the sadness sunk deep into his bones. He was facing the tent wall, thank God, so they couldn’t see his tears. He wiped carefully at his face before rolling over.

Both Russians were seated on James’ bed, watching him.

“Christ,” Steve breathed shakily, pushing the sadness deeper inside his cavernous shell of a body. He pressed his palms over his face and through his hair. “Is it time?” His voice was rough, unsteady.

James was watching him, brows furrowed.

“Not yet,” Natasha said. She looked more intrigued than concerned.

Steve rolled to sit up. His boots were nestled on the floor beside his bed and his jacket was folded on the end of the mattress. He frowned, not remembering if he’d done that. He couldn’t recall.

“I’m going to get water,” James muttered, getting up and heading out, letting the tent flap fall closed behind him.

Steve watched him go.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked Natasha.

“An hour, give or take,” she murmured, eyes still watching him carefully.

Steve wiped at his face again, wishing neither of them had seen him like this.

“You lost someone,” Natasha said gently.

Steve’s head jerked up.

“What?”

“You were talking…in your sleep,” she went on.

“You weren’t even supposed to be _in_ here,” Steve said, his tone abrasive.

She flicked her gaze over his hands, gripping at the mattress, then his face. Whatever she could see there probably wasn’t good. Steve felt far worse after his nap than before.

“Who was it?” she asked.

Steve sniffed angrily. “No one,” he said abruptly. “Stop reading into things.”

The ache is his chest throbbed and he could swear he was going to cry, before he stifled it with sheer force of will. “I need a shower,” he grunted.

He yanked on his boots, gathered up his gear and headed out, thankful he didn’t bump into anyone else on his way to the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

When he returned he was met by Jane Foster who had replaced Natasha on the second bed.

The Russians were nowhere to be seen.

“Hey,” Steve said warily, finding Jane staring at the wall opposite.

She jumped and looked up as he folded his extra gear into his duffel.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “I was looking for you.”

Steve sat on his own bed. The shower had helped to loosen his muscles but he still felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on his head. He had a throbbing ache nestled between his eyebrows and no matter how much he massaged it, it didn’t dissipate.

Jane didn’t look much better. In fact, she looked a lot worse than the last time he saw her.

Her eyes were glassy and her skin was waxy pale, her hair clearly unwashed and tangled up a messy bun.

“Jane,” Steve murmured, resting his elbows on his knees. “What’s going on?”

She blinked quickly, “Oh, nothing much,” she said. “We were analyzing more of the visual data,” she chewed on her thumbnail. Steve could see she’d been at all her fingertips, the skin broken and red. “And we’ve got a solid plan for the next Event.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “What else?”

“Huh?” she blinked up at him. It looked as if her mind was occupying two places at once.

“Jane, you don’t look well,” Steve said, brow tight. “Let me take you to medical.”

“No, gosh, no,” she laughed and waved him off. “I’m fine, really. Just a little…” she trailed off, eyes unfocusing.

“Steve,” she murmured after a moment. She bit into her other thumbnail. Steve leaned across the space and gently pulled at her hand. She didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve…I was wondering. You know we talked about the visitors?”

“The aliens?” Steve asked.

“Yes,” Jane nodded. “We talked about, um, dreaming of them?”

“Uh, sure,” Steve frowned some more. His blood was thrumming under his skin, like the slow building of a drumbeat.

“Do you ever think they can see us down here?”

Steve tilted his head. “Jane, you need rest. Let’s go back to your tent–”

“No!” she cried out, frustration on her face. “Listen to me. No one else is listening, Steve.”

She was agitated, unsure. Steve could understand why. The weight of pressure that came with this mission was probably bearing down heavily on her civilian shoulders.

“I’m listening.”

Jane exhaled slowly through her nose.

“I’m understanding a lot in a very short period of time. You have to get me when I say this isn’t normal, okay? Even for me.”

“Okay,” Steve nodded.

“You see because it’s getting clearer, the language, the sounds, the symbols. It’s what I hoped it might be.”

“Which is…?” Steve pressed gently.

“It’s that niggling itch behind the eyes, you know?” Jane wiggled her index fingers. “It’s the way our physiology dictates how we work with language. So we speak and interact the way we do because it’s how we’re best able to work, right? We have timpanic eardrums to pick up vibrations and convert that to sound. We have teeth and lips and tongues to create new sounds. We line them all up in a pre-determined pattern, and voila! Human language. Then we diversify it by region and era and all the while, this communication is mutating and adjusting and changing from one century to the next, not only because _we_ change, but because it has to adapt to more content, more knowledge.”

She was so passionate, he could see it in the way she moved her hands and widened her eyes.

He kept quiet, learning early on that a listener was always far more valuable than a talker.

“And in all of this, Steve,” Jane huffed. “We’re limited by our physiology. We can only do so much with what we’ve got. With what our brains can parse.”

“Uh huh,” Steve said, feeling an inkling of understanding. It…kind of made sense. Now that she phrased it that way, he could stew on those thoughts.

“So this Heptapod language, we–I need to come up with a name for it, but regardless,” she waved that off, “It’s testing our physical limits, creating new pathways, brightening up the inside of my head, I swear!”

Steve waited.

“You think it’s messing with you?” he murmured.

“Not _messing_ ,” she chastized him. “It’s changing my thoughts. It’s accessing something I didn’t know I had, Steve. It’s really terrifying, but also so _so exciting!”_

Only Jane Foster would be excited by the promise of her mind being snapped by new information.

“It’s cyclical, the words, the rhythm of the language. It’s irrelevant when we look at it linearly. It’s not mean to be linear, it’s a circle for a reason. We can access it from any point _on_ the circle. I dream about it, the language,” she said. “I dream of _them.”_

She turned her head and looked at Steve fully, both eyes hard and very much in the present. “I see them.”

Steve waited.

“I see them here sometimes,” Jane uttered. “I think they’re with us. It’s the headaches. The memories. I’m remembering so many things I didn’t know I even had to remember! I’m seeing years go by. They’re talking. Their language, it’s making my head hurt.”

“Jane that’s not–”

A sudden booming noise made Steve gasp and look up and there stood one of the immense aliens, its girth overshadowing them both, its faceless tree-trunk body looming in the confines of the tent. Steve jumped back, scrambled over the bed to get away. The ground vibrated and he winced, grabbing at his ears, trying to block out the noise. The sound was penetrating his skull. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t look away. What the hell was it doing inside–

“Steve?”

Jane was standing at the tent flap. She was alone.

They were alone. Everything was quiet.

Steve’s heart pounded behind his ribs and his hands twitched, the adrenaline, the terror still racing through him. He looked around the thin walls, frowning. Nothing.

“Jesus Christ,” he shuddered, feeling the terror welling in his eyes. “Jane, what the fuck?”

Why was she at the doorway when she’d _just_ been on the bed?

Was he going insane? Had he finally broken his brain in two?

“Steve what’s wrong?” Jane leaned forward. “You look sick. Are you going to throw up?”

She was closer now, at the ready to help him.

“No, no,” he rested his face in his hands, shoulders slumping. “I’m just…it’s just…”

A small hand pressed to his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she murmured softly. “It’s okay, Steve. You’re okay. Everything’s fine.”

 

* * *

 

Steve told no one about what he’d seen in his tent. He wasn’t even sure if Jane was fully aware of what happened.

He chose to focus instead on pulling his team together again for the Event pre-brief.

They stood with Hill in the computer lab tent the science squad had commandeered as their own.

Jane went over her plan to flat-out ask the Heptapods what they were doing on earth. She had run out of time and it was now or never.

Rumlow stuck to Steve’s side and for once, paid full attention.

He even asked questions. Steve caught Natasha’s strange look.

James was freshly showered and dressed in a clean uniform, gloves back in place. His hair looked good, combed back.

He looked tired, yes, but nothing like Jane, so that was something, Steve supposed.

Better that there be more alert people looking after the linguist, who was going to figure this mess out for them, than none at all.

Steve had to take meds for his headache, something that he hadn’t had to do in decades. They barely took the edge off the throbbing agony behind his eyes.

Fuck, he hoped it wouldn’t get worse up in the pod.

Jane needed him to watch her, to help her. He also needed to pay attention to the aliens, to the Russians, to Rumlow. They didn’t have the luxury of enduring a mediocre Event. Two hours. That’s all.

 

* * *

A couple of Rumlow’s STRIKE team members followed them down to the pod in an extra vehicle.

Security had been upped and with so few armed members on the base now, it made sense to keep the Event Crew safe. Keep Jane safe.

They ascended into the pod and Steve shuddered as the window of light grew larger.

He walked alongside James, right behind Jane, aware of the Russian’s giant gun.

Nothing seemed to be reason enough for the high-grade weaponry, but Steve was beyond bargaining.

He’d sort this Russian shit out later, when they were done here.

 

While Rumlow activated all the feeds, Jane set up her digital screen and tablet, preparing her little speech for the aliens.

“Jeeves and Wooster will be here soon,” Natasha said at Steve’s elbow. She was cleanly put-together, not a hair out of place. How was she not being torn to shit like the rest of them?

He actually missed Mister Yellow, her canary friend. Seems the Powers That Be had decided to let the little bugger go, what with it being the end of fucking everything and all.

Steve couldn’t imagine just being released out into the wild. Sounded nice.

He smiled.

James gave him a _look._ “You okay?” he said gruffly.

Steve smiled wider. “Sure, champ,” he muttered, knowing the feed would pick up their conversation.”Never been better.” He patted James’ back.

Rumlow was shaking his head again.

“Incoming,” he barked. “Heptapods.”

Like every other time they met, the Heptapods stepped out of the mist and took their places behind the window. The noises they bellowed were spine-melting and still very terrifying.

Steve wasn’t sure he could ever get used to their presence.

The one on the left, Jeeves, lifted a tentacle and spit out an inky symbol.

“Hello,” Jane said loud enough for them all to hear. God, had she really memorized enough of their symbols now, or was she really picking it up like another language?

Steve winced as his head throbbed. 

“Can we move this along?” Rumlow said from somewhere behind him. Steve turned and glared at him.

Jane didn’t seem to hear.

She tapped at her tablet, fingers shaking.

Lord knowsjust how terrified she must feel, being the lone person who had to ask an alien a difficult question.

The large monitor on the tripod next to Jane lit up brightly. A black ink symbol sat there in plain view.

She tapped again and another symbol replaced that one.

“Why-” she breathed unsteadily. Steve stood behind her and he could see she had planted her feet for stability. “Why have you come here?”

Jeeves and Wooster said nothing.

Jane huffed in frustration. She tapped at her tablet some more, looking for the correct logograms, the correct sequencing of visuals.

“Earth,” she said hastily, putting up an ink blot. “Why are you here on earth?”

They’d run through this procedure a dozen times down in the basecamp but it was surreal to see it being acted out in front of the Heptapods.

The aliens seemed to burble at one another, something they did on occasion.

The silence of the tunnel was deafening, swallowing them up.

Steve could hear everyone’s breathing in his ear.

“Hold on for an answer,” came Hill’s staticky voice over the comm.

Then Jeeves lifted its tentacle and spurted out a misty ink blot. It must be one Jane recognized.

She gasped, clearly the only person in the tunnel able to understand.

“What does it say?” Steve asked, knowing the techs on ground level wouldn’t be as fast as Jane at interpreting this.

“They…” Jane took a step back. “They said, they’re here to … to _offer weapon.”_

The whole room went quiet. Steve’s mouth flapped. What the hell did that mean?

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Rumlow barked. “All right, everyone out!”

“No, wait!” Jane cried as Hill fired off more orders that matched Rumlow’s. “We have to stay! We’re running out of time!” She turned to Steve, eyes wide.

“Sorry, Jane,” Steve said, “General’s orders. We need to go.” He gave the signal to the Russians and both of them nodded and holstered their weapons.

“No!” Jane wailed, “We still have more time! Let me figure this out! We haven’t taught them enough of our words. They may not mean weapon!”

“Jane,” Steve came up to her and took her hands in his. “We specifically added weapon to the list, remember? We made sure it was one of the words they _did_ understand.”

“No!” Jane said, angry now. Steve didn’t want to, but for her sake, he had to. He bent down and hoisted her over his shoulder.

She slapped at his back, legs kicking. “No! They might mean something else! We didn’t learn enough! We don’t have enough data! You have to stop! Put me down, Steve!”

Rumlow herded them all out, Steve the last to go, with Jane kicking and screaming all the way down the tunnel. This was the only time they’d ever turned their backs on the Heptapods and left them behind.

Steve’s neck prickled.

He hoped to high hell this wasn’t the worst decision they’d ever made.


	8. Chapter 8

“We have to go back!” Jane cried, arms waving. Steve’s eyes followed her. They’d barely been out of the pod twenty minutes and she looked stricken, skin shiny, eyes wide.

“They were opening up, they were telling me–”

“They told you they had a weapon,” Fury’s large face boomed from the massive conference monitor.

“ _No,_ ” Jane turned on him, angry as a bee trapped in a spider’s web. “They said they were _offering_ a weapon. And we don’t know that they _meant_ weapon! The details, the clarifications I can still make–”

“You are not going in there until we’ve mobilized all international teams,” Fury barked over her.

“You’re not listening!” Jane shrieked.

Everyone went still.

Rumlow was pacing behind them, having already backed Fury’s orders.

Steve stood behind Jane, Natasha and James on either side of him. 

Jane’s science squad stood off to the side, looking younger than ever in their uniforms made for older, more weathered operatives. 

It was then that it hit Steve how unprepared they’d been for this mission. They’d pulled in Goddamn civilians, barely above legal drinking age, to help develop an alien communications program, and now that shit was going to hell these _kids_ were left standing in the very possible blast radius of an invading alien race!

“You need to listen!” Jane said. “I know what I’m talking about. Youcannot expect to understand them unless we listen to them.”

“They are not allies, Doctor Foster,” Fury said, calmer. “They are under supervision by the strategic homeland–”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Jane spat back. “You’re bullshitting yourself and everyone else on this base if you think that’s true. No one is ‘supervising’ the visitors,” she snarled. Steve felt a hint of pride blossom inside his chest. For someone so petite and unobtrusive, she really could hold her own. “They are giving us their time, so that we may _understand_ them and why they’re here.”

“They have a weapon,” Rumlow burst out, coming closer to the group. Steve turned to see the danger in the man’s eyes. “We don’t even know what kind. It could blow us right off the damn map. Don’t you get it? Twelve operating weirdo alien sniper ships just waiting to tap the button and we’re gone, burnt to a crisp, fried in seconds. You really want to risk that, Doc?”

“If they burned us up in seconds, we wouldn’t even notice, dumbass,” Kamala piped up before her team shushed her. Rumlow ignored her, as he had always done. His eyes were on Jane. He pointed at her. “You were supposed to figure this out sooner. Now we got Russia holding us all by the _balls_ and we got nothing, no leverage, no comeback, nada.”

“Agent, step back,” Steve intercepted Rumlow. He’d been stomping closer and closer to Jane in a way that set off all of Steve’s sensors.

“Cap, you get it, right?” Rumlow said, clearly not understanding how dangerous he looked. He waved an arm at Natasha. “These bastards are watching, smiling, biding their damn time before they stab us all in the back.”

“ _Agent,_ ” Hill stood up from her position leaning against the presentation desk. “Captain Rogers told you to step back.”

“Fuck,” Rumlow threw up his hands. “You’re all gonna regret the decisions you made ‘in committee’ here today.” He used air quotes, a modern form of sarcasm that irked Steve to no end.

“We heard you,” Fury said drolly, “and I’ve already made my decision. We prepare for the final Event. We only got one left, folks, so let’s make it a doozy.”

“You want me to call my team and head your way?” Rumlow asked, folding his arms across his chest. Steve caught the way James was glaring at Rumlow. Well, the lack of affection they had for one another was clearly mutual.

“No,” Fury sighed and rubbed at his face. “I got things to wrap up here in DC. You all need to prepare to move out sooner rather than later. Now, I got heads to knock together. Hill, keep me posted.”

His face blooped out of existence and Steve ground his teeth, annoyed at the haphazard decisions being made on the fly.

“What?” Jane exclaimed. “We still have time in _this_ Event!” she looked like she could bend metal with her bare hands. “They trust me, let me–”

Hill raised her hand. “You heard him: next Event. Take the time we have _now_ to prepare for that one.”

Jane fumed, looking two seconds away from retorting, then turned and stomped out of the tent.

Her squad followed, scuttling out into the dim daylight. The sun would start to dip soon.

Steve nodded to Hill. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” he murmured.

“Please do,” Hill sighed. “Everyone out.”

 

* * *

Steve found Jane pacing around the small tent she shared with her team. The juniors were sitting on their bunk beds, watching her. Sasha was taking notes because Jane was jabbering away, words and thoughts just falling from her lips, rapid-fire.

“It’s easy to confuse _weapon_ ,” Jane said. “Maybe they meant something else. Weapon doesn’t work, not based on our language, or theirs, perhaps. It could be a thought construct, a concept. Words are a weapon, maybe it’s a puzzle? Maybe we need a bridging term, a better visual. Think of better visuals than physical armaments.” Sasha nodded, hand scribbling faster.

Steve sighed and rubbed at his face, feeling the throbbing behind his eyes. He turned when he heard a rustling behind him.

James was there, eyes on him. “You think Fury will cancel this?” he asked, voice low.

Steve paused before answering. “You think your president’s gonna nuke the pods?”

James’ mouth twisted. He said something. Steve frowned, confused. “What was that?”

James’ eyes slowly rolled back to meet Steve’s.They were a piercing grey-blue. “It’s a saying. Maybe a proverb? Something we learned in covert ops training - indoctrination, I suppose.” He made a face like he was only coming to this conclusion now. “It translates to something…” he paused, thinking. “Something like:  _The personal gain of a single soldier may turn into the loss of an entire battalion._ ”

He tilted his head and sniffed. “It hints at the way our superiors taught us, me, to believe in the overall mission, to follow the company, and to…obey Hydra. The higher up you go, the less people repeat the saying. They cut back their enemies to make it to the top until only _they_ are left standing, and then they only have to listen to themselves. It works when you’re a soldier, believing in some bigger team effort, but it comes full circle when you are the one man left. A vicious circle, if you ask me.” 

He licked his lips, eyes lost somewhere else. “It’s something like a curse to Russian leaders, but a forced mantra for the soldiers.”

James’ proverb revealed more than it should.

Steve watched him. He watched the way James’ hair fell into his face, and the way he would flick his head to be rid of it. He watched the way his cheek would twitch, indicating he was clenching his jaw, stewing, thinking, stressing, just like Steve. He wondered about what James had gone through to understand his trauma here and now and not years before. What horrible shit did Hydra enact to ensure compliance?

The divisiveness of being ‘other’ continued to strike Steve as odd. Folks, all folks, are always _just_ people. Skin and bone with soft, fleshy insides, personal struggles and almost universal concerns about safety and protection, and life and death.

James was just another version of Steve, cut from a different pattern and sewn together with different cloth. He was tough, and obviously a prized operative, considering how long Hydra had kept him working. But James also came across as gentle, somewhat softer around the edges, something he couldn’t cover up, it seemed. It made Steve wonder what James would have been like had he not been dragged face-first through the spy-ops battlefield against his will. 

Here stood a man no more precious or less valuable than Steve himself. People talked about Steve and his serumed body as if he weren’t there, as though his ears didn’t work. They saw him as a powerhouse, an icon, an idol in some ways. 

Looking at James reminded Steve that his own body, his own autonomy was far more valuable than whatever Captain America meant to everyone else. Somewhere along the way he’d forgotten that.

Every person was an individual from beginning to end. Why James of all people brought this out in Steve was something he didn’t particularly want to look into.

Whatever it was, James was slowly but surely causing Steve to lean into his bubble, his presence.

“Captain Rogers?” James said.

Steve blinked.

James jutted his chin to the inside of the tent. Steve turned to find Jane, red-eyed and furious.

“We have to get back inside the pod,” she said, voice only just above a whisper. Steve could see the thrum of anxiety vibrating through her. 

“We can’t,” Steve said gently. “We’re out of time.”

“ _Technically_ ,” Andy piped up, “we have fifteen minutes before the standard two-hour window closes.”

Steve sighed. “I know it’s not ideal, guys, but we have one more, hell maybe a bunch more Events left.”

“Not as far as the US Government is concerned,” Kamala muttered under her breath.

“You think Russia is bluffing?” Steve turned to see Natasha. “Trust me, that deadline, it will be upheld, treaty or no.”

“We can go!” Jane stared up at Steve. She looked almost manic, her eyes wet, wide. “We don’t need a lot of time. I know what to say, what to ask. SHIELD’s taking this stupid miscommunication back to the UN for Christ’s sake! They’re going to make snap judgements based on a mistake, Steve.”

“No, they’re going to try to appease Russia, China and North Korea,” Steve said slowly.

“It’s the UN, not Captain Planet,” Kamala said.

“I don’t know what the difference is,” Steve glanced at James, who shrugged, just as confused. “But we can wait a little bit bef–”

“Steve, what’s the harm? We can just pop up there and be out, super quick, I promise,” Jane whispered, hands held up as if in prayer.

Steve closed his eyes. “I’m not the one leading this operation. You heard Fury.”

“No, but you lead this team,” Sasha said softly.

The others nodded fervently.

Steve looked at them all. Everyone was tired, dehydrated and worried, of course they were.

Would it be so bad to just check-in with the Heptapods? Maybe not. Definitely yes. He held his tongue, weighing the options in his head, like he always did. When it was just him out on a mission, he could leap with blind faith and hope for the best. With a team like this though, he dared not risk a single hair on anyone’s head.

It’s not like they were asking to storm an embassy or anything, or hold up a 7-eleven. It was peace talks.

Besides, the aliens cut off visiting time, not SHIELD. They had no real control over whether to impose or not.

“What do you think?” Steve turned to James. 

James blinked, taken aback. Probably didn’t think Steve would ever ask him that. He shrugged. “Mission stands, but the General has denied the option.”

Steve stared at him. “I asked what do _you_ think?”

James scowled, “I … don’t care?” and sounded like he meant it.

Steve paused.

A memory flashed behind his eyes. Something else, something familiar. 

 

 

 

> _“I don’t care, Steve.”_
> 
> _“Sure you do. I can see it in your face.”_
> 
> _“If that’s true then why the hell are you asking?”_

 

Steve swallowed, his throat clenching. He coughed, trying to clear his airway.

James was looking at him funny. Steve wasn’t really able to read the guy. Not yet, anyway.

“Okay, fine,” Steve said, glancing around. He stepped into the tent. “But we’re in and out. You get five minutes, max.”

“Three,” Natasha interrupted. “We need a car. Time in.” 

Jane was already out the tent, darting down the grass to the corral of Jeeps they had parked at the ready.

Then Sasha, Andy and Kamala rushed after her. Steve watched for anyone coming. The base was pretty quiet. He looked at his watch. Minor shift change was coming up, so that’d help.

Within moments, they were all bundled up into one of the remaining Jeeps and Steve was gunning the engine with a pilfered set of keys.

“Oi!” came a sharp voice. “Who’s given the go-ahead for a vehicle release?”

“Son, I’ll bring it back,” Steve barked, twisting the steering wheel sharply. He stared down at the agent. “I promise.”

The sergeant on the ground looked confused but didn’t try to stop them, obviously assuming Captain America could drive whatever government-issued vehicle he wanted anywhere he desired.

“Wow, the power of Cap, huh?” Kamala said. She and the other two juniors were jammed into the back seat while Natasha and James sat in the back. Jane sat shotgun, palms pressed to the dashboard, eyes already focused on the floating black pod in the distance.

 

* * *

Steve frowned into the darkening sky. It was going to rain any moment and then they’d all be slipping and sliding on the wet, grassy hill. The Jeep’s headlights juddered over the greenness stretching out around them.

“Are they unloading already?” Jane leaned forward. “We haven’t finished!”

Steve squinted.

There were two vehicles at the bottom of the pod. A couple STRIKE agents were talking together and the Skyjack’s rear lights were alit, indicating it was turned on, or had been recently. Shit, were they already packing shit up?

Steve hauled their vehicle up beside the agents, all of whom looked wary of their approach. He braked sharply and everyone grunted as they were shunted forward in their seats.

“Watch it!” Natasha barked from somewhere in the back.

“Cap?” a STRIKE agent approached.

“We need to get up there,” Steve said with all authority. “Oh, Rumlow, there you are! Tell me the equipment up there’s still working.”

Rumlow stomped over, eyes darting to his two agents.

“Cap, nobody’s goin’ up there.”

“The chute is still open,” Jane cried out. Shit, she was already out of the Jeep and heading toward the skyjack.

“Hey, Doc!” Rumlow snatched at her arm. “I _said_ nobody’s allowed up there. It’s off limits.”

“Change of plan,” Steve said firmly, getting out of the car. Jane yanked her arm free and scowled at Rumlow.

James and Natasha hopped off the Jeep.

“You stay in the car,” Steve heard Natasha say to the science kids. 

“But–!”

Steve turned on his heel. “You’re not heading up there,” he said, voice loud and large in the open air. The wind was picking up, whirling at Steve’s uncombed hair.

“Cap,” Rumlow got in his face. “General’s orders.”

Steve eyed Rumlow calmly, impassive. “This is my squad and we’re going up there for five Goddamn minutes. Now move.”

Rumlow stared back, then , after a moment, he stepped back and nodded.

His STRIKE agents looked spooked. They were jumpy, on edge. Rumlow’s influence was clearly having an effect on them.

“You can’t do anything,” Rumlow growled.

“Brock,” Steve sighed, “you're in or you’re out. Think fast.”

Rumlow gritted his teeth and wavered. He glanced at his team, then waved them off. “Head back, I got this.”

“But–” an agent piped up.

“Just do it,” Rumlow shook his head.

Water droplets started to fall from the sky, drip-dripping onto Steve’s face and hair.

“Hel _lo!”_ Jane yelled.

Steve jerked his head up. She and the Russians were already on the Skyjack.

“Goddamnit,” Steve walked over, Rumlow following at a slower pace.

“Hurry up!” Jane cried out. “We’re running out of time!”

They ascended into the alien pod, the Skyjack creaking and whining. The tension among the group was palpable.

“This is a dumb idea, “ Rumlow grumbled.

“Then get off,” Natasha said.

“Why don’t you just shut–”

James cut Rumlow off by blocking Natasha with his body.

“Stop it,” Steve said. “God, you’re like children! Not now.”

Rumlow backed off but he wasn’t happy. In fact, he was jumpier than usual, his fingers twitching and tapping over the butt of his gun. He chewed his lip, his dark, brushlike eyebrows pressing low over his shadowy eyes.

They ascended and climb-walked up the tunnel. The gravity twist got easier and easier every time. Seems Steve’s equilibrium had adjusted. He didn’t feel as queasy as usual and that was saying something.

Jane rushed ahead, her determination to solve this puzzle driving her.

“You think she’s gonna figure this conundrum out?” Natasha asked from Steve’s right. Her giant gun sat easily in her hands. 

“We’ll see,” Steve shrugged. He jammed his earpiece into place. Natasha raised a brow. “Really? Hill’s going to flay us all you know.”

“Then why did you come with? I told you you didn’t have to.”

She shrugged, “Sometimes a girl just wants a fun night out, Cap.” Her smile was contagious.

“What are we doing?” he laughed.

She looked away, smile wider than he’d ever seen before. She was a beautiful woman with a lighter side that peeked through. 

Steve really hoped she wasn’t going to double-cross the ever-loving fuck out of them somehow. He’d grown fond of her snappy jibes and comebacks.

“They’re coming!” Jane yelled from up ahead. She was at the window. “The visitors!”

The others hurried and took to their usual positions.

Jane had her tablet out and was tap-tapping away, hands shaking, mouth fluttering over soft words to herself.

“It’s okay,” Steve murmured, “everything's going to be fine.” He tapped his earpiece again. Nothing.

So no one was manning the command control yet. Maybe they could get away with this until the STRIKE team got back to base? Steve snorted to himself. Fat chance.

Then. 

The Heptapods appeared.

They moved slow and steady, coming to stop in their standard positions, swaying ever so subtly in the white fog that surrounded them. 

How was this Steve’s new normal?

“H-Hello,” Jane uttered. “We’re sorry we left, before.”

The symbol she pulled up on her screen was a very complicated circle with a ton of undulations and rippling edges. 

Steve blinked. His angle wasn’t too good, but it was fascinating how her sentences lined up with something so complex, yet sat motionless inside one image.

The Heptapods boomed back at her. They were loud, ominous.Steve noticed movement in his periphery. He glanced to the left. 

James wasn’t facing the window. He was watching something else.

Steve felt a shiver scratch its way up his spine and into his hair.

He turned. Rumlow was standing further back than usual, his face shiny with sweat.

His eyes looked wild, reflecting the whiteness of the alien window.

Steve had to ignore him. So they were breaking a few rules? Go figure. Rumlow was going to have to deal.

He turned back to focus on Jane.

“We want to ask again,” she said. “We want to be clear. Can you please tell us why you came to earth? What is your purpose here?”

The Heptapods rumbled. They went silent and stood there, motionless.

The silence felt loud inside Steve’s head.

“Please?” Jane tapped at a new symbol Steve hadn’t seen before. Or had he? He frowned.

Wooster raised a long arm and split the end of that tentacle limb. Black misty ink spewed from the tip and hovered, wobbled in the air. The inky mass reformed into a symbol.

Steve stared at it. His heart thumped hard inside his ribcage. His head ached and he winced, pressing fingers to his temples. Maybe it was the brightness, the light? 

“It’s the same as last time,” Jane said, frustration evident in her voice. She paced for a moment. Then tapped at her tablet.

“Danger?” she said as a visual popped onto the oversized monitor directed at the Heptapods. “You brought a dangerous weapon? Can this hurt us? Hurt?”

The Heptapods rumbled and swayed.

Steve squinted.

Wooster spat out another symbol. It was the same as the previous one.

Rumlow was rustling behind them but Steve ignored him, he had to. His eyes felt like they were being hammered from behind.

The ink blot shifted and floated calmly behind the window, taunting them.

It was the same symbol.

_Weapon._

Steve stared at it, confused. He tilted his head, taking in the tendrils, the inky blots here and there.

He chewed on his lower lip, something blooming behind his eyes.

“Not weapon,” he said, voice clear, surprising everyone and himself. 

Jane turned, her eyes wet with worry. She was terrified of messing this up.

They didn’t have time.

“It’s…not weapon,” Steve winced. “It’s similar…”

Jane gasped. “You can read this?”

“I don’t …know…” Steve winced again, as a sharp pain lanced through his skull. He rubbed at his temple.

Jane came to stand beside him, taking his hand. Reassurance. The buddy system.

“It hurts, right?” she whispered.

Steve nodded slowly. 

Jane let go of his hand to tap at her tablet. 

“We’re already low on time, guys,” Natasha said from the right.

“Okay, okay, let’s clarify,” Jane murmured. A symbol popped up on her monitor.

The screen buzzed and the pixels jumped, then it went black.

“What?” Jane tapped at her tablet again. “Why isn’t it working?”

“Let me check the cables,” Natasha said, moving.

Wooster pushed out an ink symbol again.

Jane huffed in frustration. She pressed her hand to her forehead. "Why is this happening?"

“It’s the same,” Steve whispered. His eyes traced the symbol. They kept repeating it. They weren't clarifying...or they couldn't. Maybe because the Heptapods were sure of themselves. They had a weapon and were going to use it? Maybe threaten earth? But why? Why come all this way to tell them? Why waste all this time. Were they sick bastards after all? Was this a game they were playing, taunting and teasing humans in a new and unique way?

Steve's eyes lost focus for a moment and his head throbbed, like a heavy stone block was being slowly pushed into a slot, scraping and grinding against the reinforcements already in place, locking into a new configuration. He stared at the ring of ink mist. He could read it. It made sense. It was cyclical, it told a whole concept, it wasn't a piece, it was its own whole. circular language. It was beautiful. He was at a loss for words, his mouth moving silently.

He blinked.  _Weapon?_

_No._

_Close._

_But not quite._

_A weapon, it was...it could be... was also a..._

“Tool,” he whispered.

A terrifying THUD made them all jump. It was  _loud_ , making Steve's ears ring.

Jeeves was suddenly closer to the window than ever before. The ominous blackness of its body looked down on them, but it was the extended tentacle that had them spooked.  Jeeves tapped the window with its tentacle again, as it must have done just moments ago, the thud loud, piercing. It sounded like a battering ram against metal.

“What the hell?” James said, glancing up, up at the creature. He stepped back, confused. ”Is it me?” He said before taking a step back. Careful, slow.

“What’s it doing?” Natasha asked loudly.

“I don’t know!” Jane sounded frantic. “It’s telling us something!”

“Is it attacking?” Steve asked, lost, confused. Was it able to break the window? Was this the plan all along? Get them in here, coerce trust out of the team, then break free?

“What is happening?” Natasha said, twisting on her heel to look back at Steve.

He saw her eyes widen at the same time that James moved.  Both agents yelled. Natasha pushed Jane aside and leapt past Steve, over crates and cables.

Jeeves tapped at the window again, the sound now causing the walls and ground to rumble and shake. Steve stumbled.

He twisted, trying to see what Natasha and James were up to. They were aiming their weapons at Rumlow. Steve felt his stomach drop into his shoes. “What the hell? _Guns down! Why are you–”_

Then he saw it.

There was a crate. One he hadn’t noticed on the way in, distracting as this whole mess of an Event had been. It was different, not like the other metal crates. Grey plastic. The lid was askew and there was something big inside, something mechanical-looking. The crate was at Rumlow's feet.

James and Natasha had their guns on Rumlow but didn’t fire, not in here. They barked at him to drop his weapon. Jane shrieked. Rumlow was an excellent operative and faked, dodging them both. He pulled his own gun out. He fired. 

“No!” Steve yelled.

Rumlow's usually perfect aim went wide. A distraction. Rumlow was attempting to run.

Rumlow tried to escape down the tunnel but Natasha kicked his feet out from under him. Steve ran up to them, ready to separate the two but Rumlow kicked back. He rolled over, quick as a rat, and attacked Natasha, fists swinging. She responded in kind, kicking and lunging at him so fast it was like she was made of lightning. Steve’s immediate concern was how small she was compared to Rumlow. He was going to pummel her.

Steve paused when her elbow smashed Rumlow in the face and was followed up with a knee to the gut. Rumlow was too bulky, too slow, he couldn't match her agility and speed, it seemed. She landed blow after blow on Rumlow, knocking him to the ground. 

Another ominous bellow that shook the ground was followed by the window behind them vibrating sound through their every atom.

_“OUT!”_

Steve spun on his heel, disoriented by the noise, the pain in his head.

James was leaning over the open crate. Wires and taped up packages were jammed inside, lit up by the light from the window. Steve stumbled over.  “Holy shit,” he breathed, staring at the mess of wires, then moved. He vaulted over the other crates in his way and grabbed at Jane. 

“We have to go!” he barked, heaving her up, off her feet, much like earlier. “There’s a bomb!”

“A _what?”_ Jane all but screamed. “But we haven’t figured–”

Jeeves banged against the window, tentacle sharp and dangerous, pointing.

“I don’t understand!” Jane wailed.

Steve looked up, up at the alien creature.  It bellowed from somewhere beyond the window, it's cry echoing, filled with something like rage, perhaps terror.  He swallowed. It was warning them. Telling them. It knew.

_“Get out, NOW!”_ James barked, dashing across the small space. 

Steve grabbed at Jane properly, holding her tight to his chest. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck. She wasn’t fast enough. She was small and fragile, how the hell was she going to survive this? How was any of them going to get out? There was a fucking _bomb_ inside a confined alien space!

“Now! Now!” James kept yelling. "We can't disarm it! Go!" He barked something Russian at Natasha who was still grappling with Rumlow.

Steve picked Jane up and barrelled through the mess of crates and tech gear.

James pushed at him as he rushed by. “Two seconds!”

_“We’re not gonna make it!—_ ” Steve yelled back, heart thundering. He glanced back and caught sight of James scooping Natasha up, pulling her effortlessly off Rumlow like she weighed nothing.

“Fuck,” he heard James gasp, boots thundering to follow, as they both realized that there was no way they’d make it to the end of the tunnel in time.

Steve’s chest heaved as he ran. He could hear James’ footsteps, his laboured breathing. 

One more _BOOM_  against the window had them flying. Steve jolted, feet lifting off the ground as some vicious wind pushed at him, shoving him hard.

They were tossed through the air, hurtling towards the entrance of the pod at a dangerous speed.  The bomb detonated and Steve didn’t have a second to consider how they were going to survive this. They couldn’t. It was too late.

The walls lit up, reflecting the fire blossoming behind them like a ravenous beast, licking at their backs.

The entrance hurtled towards them and Steve gripped Jane tight, curling his arms to protect her, realizing at the last second that there was no soft landing waiting for them, and no way to go back.


	9. Chapter 9

It was pouring after all.

He winced.

Raindrops could be heard smacking against whatever was covering him. The droplets echoed oddly around, like a show in an oversized theatre.

Steve blinked, trying to focus, to get his bearings.

Inside …

A bright window…

Terrifying creatures…

A fire...

His eyes flew open.

There had been a bomb inside the pod tunnel.

Steve groaned. _Shit._

As he tried to calm his breathing, he thought back to what had occurred, but none of it was lining up nicely. Instead of orderly, precisely filed folders of information, his brain felt like an exploded can of beans left on a hot car hood.

They’d been thrown out of the pod, of that he was certain.

The entrance had hurtled towards them, too fast for him to figure out what to do next.

All he’d been able to do was twist, realizing that there was a problem blocking their exit: the scissorlift.

Jane would never survive that impact, so he’d curled around her, spine to the fast-approaching earth, closed his eyes and waited for the crash.

It must have knocked Steve out. He gritted his teeth, breathing slowly. He’d definitely had his bell rung.

He couldn’t hear much. No sirens, no orders being barked, just some strange thumping noises. Banging metal against … metal?

The base was far enough away that even if the blast _had_ been captured on camera or audio, it would take five to ten minutes before help showed up.

Steve winced, breath catching in his throat. He didn’t feel all that great. His chin and cheeks ached, as did his ribs, elbows and left hip. He was going to be black and blue all over, if he hadn’t ruptured anything.

The thing about the serum was that it toughened him, made him stronger with a higher chance of surviving typical life-altering accidents. He’d had his head kicked in a few times, been stabbed, been shot and had once fallen off a roof after being blasted by a weaponized slingshot. Everyone lauded those death-defying moments by clapping him on the back and cheering when he got to his feet again. Sure, he healed up faster, but that didn’t mean it didn’t _hurt._ Steve had stayed in many hospitals since coming out of the ice. They always had to monitor how his bones mended, how his organs regrew cells, how his plasma did double-duty. He didn’t remember much of those occasions because, while his body focused its energy on healing him, it would ultimately knock him out to get the job done. Like eating and exercising at the same time; the body can only handle a couple major processes at once; So it prioritized in an almost callous manner.

He’d suffered many broken bones before the serum and wasn’t suprised to know that he could still suffer a few more _after_ the serum; he’d just spend less time in a cast is all.

So when his body had hit the skyjack, sure, he didn’t die on impact, but, as he blinked, he realized he must have smashed his way through the metal, bending and breaking the vehicle into probably fun and interesting new shapes.

His ribs were screaming bloody murder and his head throbbed from where he’d cracked his skull against something.

He tried to turn, to twist, see where they’d ended up, but he couldn’t see much past the orange and black steel surrounding him.

_Jane._

He shifted, his arms and legs pinned closer than he’d like. _Thank God._ He was still holding her.

“Jane,” he gasped out, unable to bend his torso or neck to see her, see how she had fared. God, if she’d…if he’d hurt her…

He could feel her tiny body pressed to his chest. She was warm, soft, delicate like a baby bird.

No response came from her lifeless body.

Steve sucked in abreath through his nose. He had to get her out of this metal cocoon. Who knows what injuries she’d sustained in the fall. He swallowed back any other possibilities, choosing to ignore them for now.

He flexed his arms and pushed. He could feel the metal bending away from him on the left side, so he refocused on that arm and pushed harder, elbow extending outwards _._

The skyjack creaked and his left arm ached, pain shooting up and down the nerves between his elbow and neck. He must have wrenched his shoulder, possibly broken other things. Something dripped into his eye and he had to blink fast at the burning sensation.

“Fuck,” he gasped, breath small and tight in the tiny space. It was dark. He turned his head and winced as he banged his cheek against more steel. Or rubber, perhaps. A tire?

There was grass, he could feel the coldness against his hip. _Right_ against his skin. Oh God, that meant his uniform was damaged, which would probably lead to _him_ being damaged. He was very familiar with the adrenaline response and how it could mask his painlong enough to get him out of many a harrowing situation. There was grass under his head, wet and cool. So maybe they’d fallen right off the machine and rolled away? Then what? It fell on them?

He pushed with his left arm again, trying to get some leverage. _God, that hurt._

He heard voices over his own heartbeat and heavy breathing. He pushed harder, not wanting to move his right arm from around Jane.

Someone’s muffled voice was talking fast.

“Over here!” Steve yelled, banging with his fist. The metal bent against his pressure, giving him more room to breathe, to look down at Jane.

She was passed out like a limp, lifeless doll against him.

He heard the voices getting closer, someone was banging at the metal around them.

“Don’t move!” came James’ rough voice. “There’s split metal. Lots of it.”

Steve winced as his head throbbed. “We’re underneath! We just need the vehicle lifted!”

“Do you have Jane?” came Natasha’s voice. The sounds of flesh against metal had Steve imagining her clambering over something.

“Yeah,” Steve said, squeezing Jane. “She’s here. Knocked out.”

He could hear James and Natasha arguing again, their Russian sharp and quick. He wondered what the scene looked like, him and Jane wrapped up and lost under a ton of machinery.

“I gotta try!” James hissed.

“Gotta what?” Steve asked. Though it probably hadn’t been directed at him.

“Be careful,” Natasha said sharply.

Steve didn’t have a moment to think about what was happening before the metal above him began to creak and shake.

“What the hell?” Steve whispered, confused. What were they doing? Levering at the metal? With _what?_ The Jeep? There wasn’t time for a crane to have shown up, was there?

The skyjack rocked and Steve held Jane tight to him, legs wrapping around her. He pressed his palm to the back of her head, in case anything else came at them.

The dead machinery squawked and groaned, metal protesting at being pushed and shoved.

Then there was a gush of cold air and the mass of steel was lifting up, away from Steve’s face.

“What in the–” he breathed, eyes wide.

He turned to look at the opening as it got wider, the mangled skyjack moving away from his face.

He could see a pair of dirty boots and legs.

The machine groaned in protest as it was hoisted higher, as if by some unseen car jack.

Steve blinked, wondering if he’d really woken up. This was crazy. He was seeing things.

James was standing there, holding up the destroyed truck with his _hands_. He braced his feet and shoved, arms hooking under the metal, rocking the tangle of bent and broken nuts and bolts up and away.

“Steve!” Natasha yelled, bent down on one knee.

The skyjack gave a mighty groan and Steve moved quickly, rolling to the side, out of the way as best he could with Jane enclosed in his limbs. The grass became colder, wetter as he rolled even further, like a human hay bale tumbling downhill. Rain pelted them, soaking Steve’s uniform.

“Steve! Rogers!”

Natasha’s voice echoed in his skull.

Steve heard the skyjack crunching audibly, crash-landing further away, the ground trembling under its collapse.

Natasha’s face appeared above him and Steve exhaled properly. A hand pressed to his neck, fingers pushed at his eyelids.

“I’m okay,” he gasped out. “I’m okay.”

Her hair was wet and dark, sticking to her cheeks and neck.

Distant bullhorns and engines indicated the approach of the cavalry.

“Don’t move,” Natasha grunted, her perfect eyebrows scrunching in concentration. “You’re bleeding. Where does it hurt? _Don’t_ move your head.”

“I just–” Steve said, feeling dizzy. He knew he could relax, unravel his limbs from around Jane, but he couldn’t. His arms awouldn’t work.

James’ face appeared on Steve’s left, eyes wide, a line of tension running between his brows. His gaze darted over Steve, assessing. He too was soaked in rainwater, droplets falling around and on Steve.

“Let them take Jane, first,” Steve said. James looked back at him, eyes full of concern.

The two Russians appeared to be doing well, if only a little scratched up. Natasha was holding her neck stiffly though, and James’ jacket sleeve on his left arm was hanging in tatters. Streaks of shiny metal glinted dully.

“You two,” Steve said muzzily. “Medics.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Natasha anwered softer this time, and both Russians looked up when bright lights shone onto the scene, blowing out all colour and defintion. A siren blared.

Steve pressed a hand to Jane’s back and stared up into the sky.

He heard thumping feet and loud barking voices before his eyes rolled back and he let the dark edges of his vision take over.

* * *

 

 

> _I told the truth once, and only once._
> 
> _It hurts even now, but I told that truth to Sam._
> 
> _I gave everyone else the brush-off. Why? Because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stomach the conversations about how much I’d fucked up, how much I’d hurt her, him. I had messed it all up._
> 
> _Do you remember? I promised you we’d all stay close; As close as we could. Before the illness and after. Forever._
> 
> _Sam had finally asked me why she didn’t talk to me anymore; Why she ignored me, kept her distance all the time, yet continually doted on you. Everyone could see it. Sam was only being a good friend, asking._
> 
> _“I guess she’s just not that fond of me anymore,” I had said to his face that time._
> 
> _“Why?” Sam had asked, eyes watching me carefully, trying to read me. Always patient and caring, that was Sam._
> 
> _I remember wiping at my mouth, rubbing at the words that were scraping, fighting to get out, and I’d said, “Maybe because I’m boring?” Tried to play it off with a goofy smile._
> 
> _You, unlike Sam, just watched me some more, ever curious. And not for the first time did I wonder why you stuck around, why you chose me._
> 
> _You seemed unconcerned, maybe because I played it off so casually, maybe I was a good liar. She wasn’t talking to me at that point. She stuck around for you. At one time she was my best friend but then it all fell apart, once she figured it out. So long as she was there for you, maybe that was enough._
> 
> _You didn’t know either, did you? I never told you why she hated me. Of course you didn’t know. God!_
> 
> _After you were gone, she couldn’t face me anymore. I broke her heart, I think. I broke her heart because I kept something so important from her and when it all came out, she couldn’t, wouldn’t understand. I betrayed her. I know it for what it was, but I had to. I remember so clearly the argument. She was so mad she was crying. She’d jabbed her fingers at my drawings that you posted to the fridge door. There were so many at that point that it was more pen and paper than fridge._
> 
> _I remember her tearing apart one of my doodles. One of your favourites, the black moons in the sky. I loved making those science fiction drawings for you. You’d eat them up, laughing at the way I scratched out silly hills and valleys into the pages. You loved the rainy settings, the eery lighting and the black clouds made of charcoal._
> 
> _You loved the lightning I drew, the glowing lines and jagged edges._
> 
> _She saw them there, taunting her, and I’ve never seen someone so overcome with anger in my whole life._
> 
> _To Sam, when he asked again, almost a year later, after…everything, I finally broke down and told the honest to God truth._
> 
> _“She’s angry with me because we had a…disagreement,” I said. “She believes I made a bad decision. She hates my guts for it.”_
> 
> _“So …she left?” Sam had said softly,ever gentle with my feelings when he didn’t need to be._
> 
> _The house was empty at that point. I recall the dust that seemed to settle on everything no matter how much I tidied._
> 
> _“Yeah,” I’d sighed, wishing I could say otherwise. “She left. I’m not surprised at all. I would have too.”_

* * *

When he woke up, mind swimming with memories and drawings and sadness, it was to find a familiar, yet unfamiliar face at his bedside.

“Doc…tor?” Steve mumbled, confusion clouding his head.

The man looked up, suprised.

“Captain Rogers, it is good to see you awake already.”The man looked genuinely pleased, not false at all. “You talk in your sleep.”

“You…”Steve blinked and rubbed at his eye, then noticed the IV line. He followed it along and down and up to the IV bag. _Right. Medical._

“Your vitals are looking good,” the Doctor _(what was his name?)_ said. “You’re a tough man, Captain. I’m impressed by you daily.”

Steve gave a wan smile.

“Jane? How is she?” he asked. The pounding headache was gone and he felt relief just with that cessation of pain. Maybe he really had needed the rest?

“She’s…” the doctor paused long enough for Steve to worry before continuing hastily. “She’s doing better.”

“She’s okay?” Steve asked, gasping out the words.

They were in a back corner of the limited medical tent, or what was left of it anyway. A plain green tarp separated Steve from the rest of the base.

The doc smiled. _Chowdhury. That was his name!_ “Yes, she’s fine. She has a slight concussion, but otherwise, nothing else appears to be damaged.” He hesitated. “You saved her life, I believe.”

Steve closed his eyes and rested his head back against the cold-wet pillow. His skin was still damp, his uniform stiff and chilled. His uniform jacket was open, though, and his boots were missing.

He didn’t say anything.

Jane was okay, she’d survived.

“How you survived the fall and explosion…” Dr Chowdhury went on. “Is truly…astounding.”

“Yeah, ain’t it,” Steve said drily.

Another feat of death-defying bravery. Great. Sure.

“I’m guessing I don’t feel anything hurting because you pumped me full of meds?” Steve opened his eyes to meet the doc’s.

Dr Chowdhury pursed his lips. “We attempted to sedate you, yes, so as to establish the severity of your wounds.”

“And?”

“Well, you’re a tough man to keep down,” Dr Chowdhury smiled. He tapped at the tablet in his hand. “I believe you have suffered a hematoma under your left shoulderblade. But, as you always seem to to want to surprise me, it appears to be healing at a rapid rate.”

“Does that mean I don’t have to be shipped out yet?” Steve asked.

Dr Chowdhury watched him with calm, warm brown eyes. “Not yet, no. If we had better x-ray imaging here, I’d feel better about not having you sent to the nearest hospital, but it seems we’re limited anyway in terms of transportation options.”

Steve chewed on his lower lip. He could hear people moving around outside of their private room.

“Let me guess,” he said softly, “Base is on lockdown?”

The Doc nodded slowly. “The explosion…it was very bad.”

“For us?”

“For everyone, I think,” Dr Chowdhury murmured. “Though I have very limited information at this point, Captain.”

“That’s okay,” Steve closed his eyes again. “Why don’t you update me on my other injuries, huh? I got a helluva heartbeat in my hip right now…”

The doctor explained his injuries in a precise manner, starting from the cut along his forehead, the bruise on the back of his skull, and worked his way down to the dislocated left hip and fractured elbow.

As usual, Steve’s body’s desire to fix itself was getting in the way of the medical team’s assessments, letting them know every hour that their previous data was being slowly overwritten by his DNA.

“So you’re saying my hip reset itself?”

“That is the only thing I can think of to explain how you arrived here with a dislocated hipbone and then, minutes later, your hip was heard snapping into place.”

Steve felt queasy. “That’s…kind of terrifying.”

Dr, Chowdhury nodded, “It gave one of my medics a bit of a scare.”

“I should have joined the circus,” Steve muttered.

The doctor opened his mouth but was cut off by another, louder voice.

“Is he awake in there?”

“Oh no,” Steve breathed and fell back, feigning sleep.

Hill swept into the mini tent area and Steve peeked at her from under one eyelid.

“General,” the doc murmured.

“You’re awake,” Hill said sharply.

Steve looked at her fully, deciding he would have to face the music eventually.

“You little shit,” Hill hissed.

Dr Chowdhury glanced between them for a second before backing away. “I’ll…go see if your bloodwork has been processed yet,” he murmured and scooted out of biting range.

The tarp flap closed behind him.

Hill stared at Steve for a few seconds.

She was so difficult to read.

“You know what, Rogers?” she said.

Steve waited.

Hill raised a brow.

“Uh, what, General?” he murmured.

“I rarely swear at recruits,” she said, folding her arms. “I prefer to train excellentagents to the point where I know profanity will not have any effect on them. Only two agents in my history as a commander have ever made me want to strangle them and call them fucking morons.” She frowned. “Take a guess at what two.”

“Um, me?” Steve said.

Hill gave him a tight smile. It was not sincere.

“And…” Steve trailed off.

“Barton,” Hill said. “Because both of you are basically ninety-nine percent uncontrollable. But for whatever reason, you’re also both extremely competent and valuable assets to SHIELD operations. You, obviously, moreso than Barton, but sometimes, like right _now_ , that difference becomes negligible.”

Steve stared at her. She reminded him faintly of his ma. In the best ways. He swallowed.

“Rumlow is dead,” Hill said. Her gaze was hard. “He didn’t make it out, unfortunately.”

“I see,” Steve said.

“I thought I’d see you happier about that,” Hill went on.

Steve set his lips in a straight line. “I … I’m not happy he’s dead, General. I didn’t want that.”

“I’m getting the same stories out of the Russians. Now you have to tell me yours. This isn’t going to end well, Rogers.”

Steve nodded slowly.

He understood. A high-ranking STRIKE agent getting killed inside an alien spaceship for no apparent reason would definitely be suspicious. This would probably count as treason.

“What happened?” Hill asked. “Or do we need to call in the lawyers already?”

Steve looked down for a moment. “Rumlow…he set us up. Somehow. There was a case of C4 wired to explode inside the tunnel.”

“How did the C4 get inside? Weren’t you with him the whole time?”

“I don’t know how it got in there,” Steve said. “All I know is it was there. I didn’t realize the crate was different to the others. Why would I have noticed?”

“Because you were the Captain on this project.”

Steve paused before answering. “You’re asking me why Rumlow died?” He looked at Hill with hard eyes. “When you know we weren’t supposed to be up there in the first place.”

Hill stared back.

“Why aren’t you angry about _that_?” Steve said.

“Oh, I’m angry,” Hill said, voice quieter. “I’m _livid_. The fact you disobeyed my orders, took an operational vehicle without permission, undermined my authority by dragging unsolicited civilians into the alien exposure site and _also_ got one of SHIELD’s top operatives killed in the process of almost destroying the Heptapods themselves, is something I’m _very_ pissed about. You have crossed so many lines, your deposition is going to read like an Escher painting.”

“We didn’t kill Rumlow,” Steve pressed. “He set an explosive device, probably to kill the aliens. He didn’t care that we were up there too.”

“And yet you still can’t explain how a fucking bomb got inside there?”

Steve chewed his lip. “No.”

Hill sniffed, face hard.

“I’m so angry, Steve,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “I would say I’m sorry, but that would be a lie.”

Hill rubbed her hand over her mouth.

“I’m angry because you’re gonna be subpoenaed for these actions and you don’t even have an explanation for why you all went out there, guns fucking blazing.”

Steve looked at her, not as his General, but as his colleague.

“Shit,” he huffed. “Jane wanted to talk to the aliens. That’s all.”

“And now they’re not talking to anyone else,” Hill said. “We’ve lost our access, Steve.”

He swallowed, “Are…did they die?”

Hill chewed her lip. “Russia is freaking out right now and we can’t hide this forever. The base is on lockdown to ensure nothing gets out yet.”

“Did they die?” Steve said. He had a memory of the fall, of the gust of wind that pushed him… “I think they saved us. The aliens.”

Hill sighed. “We don’t know. The pod has lifted higher. We can’t access them anymore. They closed off their hatch. I don’t think we have that last Event, Steve. It’s over.”

Steve swore under his breath.

Hill stood there, quiet, watching him.

“You have the others’ explanations?” Steve asked. “James and Natasha?”

“Yes,” Hill said. “Funny they both made it out pretty unscathed.”

Steve looked at the equipment beeping beside him. “James…he’s not normal,” Steve muttered. “He’s…there’s something else.”

He looked up at Hill. Her face was impassive. “You trying to say he’s culpable?”

Steve’s eyes widened, “No! Fuck, no. Just…he’s not what I thought he was.”

Hill sighed and wiped a hand over her eyes. “This is such a fucking mess, Steve.”

“I know,” he murmured.

She stayed like that for a moment. “You talk a lot in your sleep,” she said softly.

Steve watched her. “Yeah. Apparently.”

Hill pulled her hand away from her eyes and he could see her troubled thoughts.

“I was in here while they hooked you up and pulled samples,” she murmured. “Veins like a lizard, you have.”

Steve smiled wanly. “Tough skin.”

She nodded. “Then they let me sit here. I called Fury. You just laid there.”

Steve wondered where the hell she was going with this. Was the military judicial system about to rain down on him? Probably. Maybe Hill was stalling before they came to drag him away.

“We talked about how you’re such a stupid idiot,” she went on. “Really, the dumbest.”

Steve frowned. “I–”

Hill held up her hand. “No, it’s the truth. I should have known better, but you’re Steve Rogers.” She smiled. “How the fuck did you survive WWII?”

Steve’s mouth twisted up at one end. “Well, it’s historically proven that I actually didn’t.”

“It’s your ethics that fuck you over,” Hill sighed. “That’s why you’re this Captain America guy. It’s why we always have you on board. I like your ethics. I don’t always agree with them, but I like them. You’re a crazy barometer of when something is minor or a shitstorm in the making.”

Steve tilted his head.

“I joined SHIELD over fifteen years ago, Cap,” she said. “Army release, experienced operative who led campaigns into Darfur and Afghanistan. I got head-hunted by SHIELD and you wanna know why I leapt at the proposition?”

Steve shook his head.

Hill watched him. “Peggy Carter.”

Steve’s eyes widened and he felt his heart leap at the name.

“That’s right,” Hill said, “ _The_ Margaret Carter herself was there, gunning for my admission into SHIELD. Did you know she still had input into the acquiring and hiring of female recruits, right up until her death?”

“I did not know that, no,” Steve whispered, reminded of the funeral, the overarching sadness that compounded what it felt like to be a man out of his time.

“She believed in you,” Hill said. “She told me to always trust you. Not for your strength, or your bravery, but for your fucking _ethics_. Because all that really mattered was whether or not you were a good man before a famous one.”

Steve swallowed. God, _Peggy_.

“She was a great woman,” Steve said, voice dry.

“That she was,” Hill said.

Steve sniffed. He glanced up at his General. “So am I to assume feds are rolling in to cuff me sooner rather than later?”

Hill smiled then, her eyes twinkling the same way they would just before she launched pararescue teams out into the wilderness.

“Not if I have anything to do about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Steve knew the clock was ticking. After a few more hours of monitoring by the doctor, he was set free to go find the others. Hill warned him to be careful. He located Jane and her squad.

Jane was up and about, walking slowly, but talking fast and loose as always. When she turned and spotted him, her jaw dropped.

“Steve,” she breathed out, eyes welling up. She dashed over, limping ever so slightly, and threw her arms around his waist.

“You’re amazing,” she gasped out, pressing her face to his chest.

He was so happy to see she was doing well, that he couldn’t find an appropriate response. The squad came over as well and thanked him over and over, their voices babbling over one another.

“It was insane!” Andy yelled.

“I was so scared!” Sasha cried.

“You’re nuts!” Kamala added on.

Together, they inundated him with information about what happened after he blacked out.

“We were in the car and there’s, like, this _noise_ ,” Kamala babbled, sitting on a stool beside the bed Jane had decided to perch on. The medical tent was devoid of much personnel and equipment, so the kids made of it what they could. Walls were missing, and the pattering of rain could be seen and heard not far off.

“This _explosion_!” Sasha cried.

“Yeah,” Kamala waved her off. “And then, like, you guys came crashing out of the hole, right into the truck thingy. I nearly died of shock! Fire and smoke, like, poured out after you, then the hole, like, slammed shut.”

“I screamed so loud,” Sasha said. “We thought you were dead.”

“You crushed a truck, man,” Andy said to Steve reverentially. “They found a huge hole in it, bits all bent and broken, right where you fell.”

“It was _insane!_ ” Kamala said, hands flexed wide.

“We ran over,” Andy said, “but the Russians beat us to it.” The kids all paused and looked at one another.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “I think I remember this bit."

Kamala leaned in, eyes wide. “We’re kinda scared though.”

“What?” Steve frowned, “Why?”

“He’s not safe to be around,” Kamala whispered.

“Who?” Steve asked.

“You _know_.”

“The Russian guy!” Sasha hissed.

Steve blinked. “Why not?” He glanced at Jane, “Didn’t he save us?”

“No, _you_ saved _her_ ,” Kamala pointed to Jane. “He just freakishly lifted a damn truck with his bare hands, like a monster.”

So it _had_ happened! Steve wasn't crazy.. James had moved the skyjack, had lifted the whole thing by himself. Fuck. That was definitely not normal.

“He’s a hero,” Steve said.

“I’m not so sure about _that_ ,” Andy said with a crooked brow. “I mean…” he glanced at his team. “That _arm?_ That’s not normal.”

Steve blinked. “You mean, his prosthetic? Why?”

“Prosthetics don’t look and work like that,” Kamala said. “He's been hiding it this whole time! Points to something bad, no?”

“But–” Steve paused. He was living a hundred years in the future. Everything was possible, wasn’t it? How was this prosthetic limb any different?

“I think,” Jane said softly. Her face was lightly bruised on one side and she winced. “What Captain Rogers doesn’t know, is that prosthetics aren’t _there_ yet.”

“Do you mean that that’s not a normal mechanical arm? Why not?”

“The science behind that thing?” Andy shook his head, “I’ve never heard of anything like it. If that kind of tech exists, the scientific community has been blinded and that tech has been hidden away. The bio-organic uplink? The brain-to-limb functionality, as well as the strength and mobility? Not normal, no.”

Steve looked around the small team. “Are you…scared of him?” he asked gently.

Sasha glanced at Kamala.

“You…” Steve exhaled slowly, “You don’t have to be scared of him, I promise.”

“How do you know that?” Kamala hissed, eyes darting around. “He’s Russian intel, isn’t he? Maybe he set the bomb up there?”

“No,” Steve said firmly. “He did no such thing. I believe him when he says he’s here to help. It would do you all well to take the time to absorb that.” He wasn't about to let insecurities ruin the capabilities of a good person.

He caught Jane staring at him. She blinked and nodded. She looked...worried. She looked very out of it, dazed and probably still hurting from her concussion. Shit,Steve hadn't even thought of her plan to figure out the aliens. They were out of choices now. What on earth was left?

 

* * *

 

 

Steve, against the doctor’s orders, removed himself from the medical tent. He had to know what was going on outside of the base. Hill updated him on the Russia/China/Korea situation and it wasn’t looking good at all. The Russian president was holding firm, declaring that war was a serious option in the next twenty-four hours. Nuclear missiles weren’t a distant nightmare anymore. Hill also made it clear that without the final Event available to them in that timeframe, they couldn’t be sure of any coalition with the Heptapods. She was going to have to move operations out of Montana. The base was becoming null and void. Everything had to be shut down and she needed to make a clean sweep of the operation.

On his way back to his tent, Steve paused to stare up at the sky. The alien pod was indeed no longer accessible. It floated silently up in the dark clouds, hundreds of feet in the air. They must be thinking the worst of the human race now. What the hell was the point in all of this now? What about Jeeves and Wooster? Were they okay?

Steve located James. The man was resting up in the small tent they now shared. He sat up when Steve entered. The confines of the tent made Steve hyper-aware of his every body part. James was shirtless. It became apparent why.

He had numerous bruises and lacerations down his left side and bandages taped to his stomach.

“What the hell happened?” Steve asked.

James stared up at him.

“You’re awake,” he rumbled slowly, eyes wide.

Steve nodded and moved to sit on the bed opposite James so they could face each other properly.

“You okay?” Steve asked, nodding at the injuries he could see.

James shrugged, “Could be better. But functional.”

“How’d you get all that?”

James sighed, “When we fell, I grabbed for the tunnel wall.” He held up his metal hand and wiggled the fingers. They were quiet, so pristinely-made that no sound emanated from them. “It helped with the drag. We fell and hit the grass.”

Steve looked at the scabs and bruises littered over James’ torso. He must have scraped his whole side down the rocky wall of the pod tunnel. The kids would have seen the outcome of that. No wonder they were scared.

“And Natasha?” Steve asked.

“She’s fine,” James smiled. “Wrenched her neck a little.”

“Because you were holding onto her?”

“Possibly,” James said. His pale eyes flicked over Steve in his newly-unpacked agent uniform. “You look…better.”

“I looked bad for a while?”

James smiled then and it changed his face. It lit him up. “A little.”

Steve smiled and nodded, resting his elbows on his knees. “Thank you for saving us.”

James’ smile waned, “I didn’t–”

“You’re strong,” Steve pressed.

James looked worried, like he wanted to get up and leave.

“It’s okay,” Steve murmured. “I … was surprised, is all.”

“It’s not…common knowledge,” James murmured.

“That’s why Russia kept you so long?”

James nodded, eyes looking at Steve from behind his long hair.

The Winter Soldier: stronger, more durable, more precise than the average man. If there was any person on earth who could relate, it would be Steve. Maybe it was fate that they met like this, under these circumstances.

“I’m not gonna ask what they did to you to get you like that,” Steve said gently. “It’s no one’s business.”

James bit his lip and pushed his metal hand through his messy hair.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Steve said.

“We couldn’t let you die inside that mess,” James said. “The rescue team took too long.”

“I know.”

James’ eyes flicked around the small tent, worry etched into his features. “SHIELD knows, don’t they?”

Steve nodded. “Maybe. Witnesses.”

Bucky swore, “Damnit.”

“I’ve spoken to the kids,” Steve said. “They understand the severity of sharing anything more about what they saw.”

“But Hill–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said. “Please, don’t. You’re in no danger, not anymore.”

James scowled, “You can’t say that, Captain.”

Steve looked into James’ eyes.

“I can, and I just did. I’m not about to let another government agency take your autonomy from you. It’s the one damn thing you deserve.”

James frowned, confusion flitting over his face. “But…why? You’re a SHIELD operative. You’re Captain America.” As he said those words, a hint of a Russian lilt swept over his consonants. “You are loyal to _this_ government.”

“Do I need a reason other than ‘I trust you’?” Steve said gently.

“You’re a fool,” James said. “You cannot trust me. Who would do that?”

“Natasha does,” Steve said. “And would you say she’s not to be trusted as well?”

That caught James. He chewed on it for a moment. “You are an infuriating man.”

Steve’s chest expanded with pride. Warmth flooded his limbs, akin to something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

James was…intriguing. And kind and, well, he looked good shirtless. What that meant for Steve and his issues with loyalty, well, that was to be seen.

James appeared worn out, but somehow better than before; Like he’d shaken off shackles and decided he could relax a little. Maybe with the end of the world on the horizon, he felt compelled to just let himself be?

“Russia is not happy,” James said, his voice a rusty rumble in the confined space. They were two pretty big guys, closeted together on the edge of the base.

“With us?” Steve asked, licking his lips.

James’ eyes followed his tongue and that sparked something in Steve, something unexpected. It surprised him perhaps even more than his vague affinity for the other man. Was James…reciprocating? No. Probably not.

It hadn’t actually occurred to Steve that what kept thumping inside his chest whenever he saw James was _attraction_.

He swallowed, having a sincerely troubling realization wash over him. And of course it would raise its ugly head in _front_ of James.

“Captain, are you okay?”

“Uh,” Steve’s head had dropped down so he could hide his features. “Yeah. Sorry, thinking.”

He took a deep breath and lifted his head. “You were saying? Russia is not happy with us?”

“No, with me,” James uttered.

“You’re with us now, there’s nothing they can do. Do they even know where you are?”

James chewed his lip and sat up, rubbing his palms over his thighs.

“It has become apparent, in the president’s speeches, that they are aware of mine and Natasha’s defection.”

“What? _How?_ ” Steve sat up.

“It was in the Russian media,” James said. Steve tried not to be distracted at the way James’ muscles flexed as he pressed his hands into his thighs.

“There are…signals…voiced in public announcements,” he went on. “Hydra is notified via these signals all the time. The Russian media reported the president talking of Russian assets coming home.”

“You’re…an _asset_?” Steve asked.

James nodded slowly. “I am _the_ asset.”

Steve breathed for a moment. “So they know we’ve got you. Do they know you’re here, on the alien base?”

“I …do not think so,” James uttered. “But they’re on high alert now. All of Hydra has been made aware of my absence.”

“Shit,” Steve breathed. “Natasha too?”

“As my last handler, yes, she would be a high risk operative.”

“Do they know you’ve converted, or just gone missing?”

James shrugged, “I assume the worst.”

“Fuck,” Steve rubbed his hands over his face, thinking. This is one thing that he didn’t want to complicate things further. James _should_ be the least of everyone’s problems, what with the world being on the brink of self-immolation and all.

But if the Russians were making a point of it…then he had to do something.

He glanced up at James.

James was watching him.

When their eyes connected, James looked away, a faint flush pinkening his cheeks.

For a terrifying foreign operative capable of bringing down governments, he sure was adorable.

Steve smiled to himself. They'd lost contact with the aliens. Rumlow was dead and his team would probably not be reticent to help anymore. The government was pressuring them for answers and they had none.

And now the Russians were hyper-focused on finding their elite assassin operatives that were hiding in plain sight right at the epicentre of the American-alien home base operation.

“Well, let's just add this to our list of things to do, shall we? Now, are you hungry?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who is still hanging in there and keeping up with me and this story. I read your comments and rejoice! You are the real MVPs. :-)


	10. Chapter 10

James had to dig around in his measly personal belongings (which seemed to be comprised of SHIELD gear and not much else) to find a shirt.

Steve wondered how that felt, not having anything of your own. Did James have a locker somewhere? A safe-house? Steve had stuff back in New York. But they were just _things_.

James grunted as he stretched a plain black long-sleeve t-shirt over his head. Steve couldn't help watching the way the mess of bruises and scars rippled as James' torso twisted.

James tugged the shirt down over his stomach and wiped his hands through his hair, tucking it back behind both ears.

"Ready?" Steve murmured.

"Yeah," James nodded and followed him out.

The grass beneath their boots was still damp.

The base was quiet.

"Hill's prepping what's left of operations," Steve said, leading James around the main tents, back to the mess. "It's time to close up shop."

James was quiet beside him. He walked stiffly, as if his muscles weren’t cooperating.

They walked down the grass, strips of it yellowed by the tents and hallways that had blocked out the sun for weeks.

It reminded Steve of those alien crop circles he'd seen on late-night TV when he'd settled into his first DC apartment. That was back when he couldn’t get any shut-eye at all due to his body having been asleep for seventy-odd years. It took a good long time for his cells to normalize.

On the way, they were accosted by Kamala.

“I need to talk to you, sir,” she said, arms folded, eyes glancing at James, then away again.

“Uh,” Steve uttered, caught off-balance.

“I’ll be at the mess,” James said, understanding immediately. He turned and started to walk off, his gait steady, his back straight.

“She’s not okay,” Kamala said, interrupting Steve’s thoughts on James’ physique. He blinked and turned back to her. “Jane,” she said. “She’s not okay.”

He’d been preoccupied with his aching joints and the throbbing, persistent jangling of his nerves just under his shirt. Earlier he’d been playing with the idea of going to medical, just in case, or perhaps going back to his tent and inspecting the damage again. He’d retaped his bandages and inspected his bruising while in the bathroom earlier, but again, he wasn’t exactly a medical professional.

Steve decided to hold out, knowing his own body and his own pain threshold better than anyone else. It had worked well so far - minus that time in Prague (even to this day he was certain a through-and-through gunshot wound shouldn’t have been that much of a concern).

He looked down at Kamala, concern blossoming when he saw her expression. Had she been looking for him, or was this just fortuitous? Steve wasn’t sure. She was a determined young woman, with a mind that sparked both bright and terrifying all at once. If Steve had had her wit and forked tongue when he was younger, he would probably have had double as many broken bones before the age of ten.

“Sorry, what?” He pulled back and gave her his full attention. No one ever seemed to do that; listen to her and her squad. He needed to get his mind off James and onto other things, damnit. 

These kids were young, yes, but they weren’t _garbage._ He never did understand the way senior operatives would dismiss the younger agents. 

“She’s lying,” Kamala said, frowning deeper. “I…” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I mean, she’s a grown-ass person, and one of, if not _the_ smartest woman I know. So it feels... _bad_ to be saying this.”

Steve waited.

Kamala sighed, “But she’s been lying for days now. I didn’t notice at first, because what’s a few hours here and there? We’re all stressed, right? No one’s sleeping properly. No one’s at optimal capacity. I feel half dead myself. But this is different.” She huffed through her nose and seemed to consider her next words.

“Go on,” Steve said.

“It’s different _because_ she’s the smart one,” Kamala’s mouth became a hard line. “She knows better. She’s always looking out for us. Telling us how to be better versions of ourselves, maximizing our brain potential, our health, and here _she_ is lying about her food, her sleep, what’s really bothering her.”

Steve chewed on his lower lip. “Do you know what’s wrong?”

She hesitated. “Not exactly,” Kamala said, “I just know something hinky’s going on. I don’t think she slept even a couple hours at a time when she was in her own tent. We wouldn’t have noticed, right?”

Steve recalled the morning when Jane had crept into his tent to talk that one time. It had been strange, in retrospect, especially considering how bad his own sleep patterns had become. “Now...now she’s got us in there with her and it’s so _obvious_. She comes to bed late and doesn’t sleep. She gets up, paces around. She talks to herself and most of it makes zero sense.” Kamala inhaled slowly and Steve noticed her lip quivering, as if she was trying her hardest to hold her composure. “I’m worried. I’m worried what this is doing to her. And–” she looked around before staring up at Steve with her large brown eyes. “I don’t think it’s basic stress stuff. I think this project, these aliens, this language. I’m worried it’s changing her, messing with her head. You can see it too, can’t you? She’s pretending she’s not understanding much of the language, but I swear she is soaking it up like a sponge. And I think it’s changing her. We don’t even know if it’s for good or bad!”

Steve placed a hand on her shoulder.

She sighed and crossed her arms. “I tried to talk to her about it. We all did. But she’s brushing it off. I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t agree with us, or she doesn’t want to believe it.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her about your concerns?” Steve asked.

“This morning,” Kamala said. “‘bout four hours ago. Me and Sasha were up early, trying to figure out where we’re headed after this. Hill had us coordinating with the transit crew.”

Right. Of course. With the very imminent base closure coming up, the crews across the board were preparing to move on and out. There was no point in remaining in Montana if the Heptapods wouldn’t speak to them anymore.

“And Jane wasn’t in the tent when we woke up,” Kamala said, worry soaking into her voice. “She was standing out in the field like some … weirdo, just staring up at the pod. I have no idea how long she was even there. When we told her to rest, to sit down and have a snack with us, anything, she just laughed and waved us off, like the bags under her eyes were nothing; like the fact she hasn’t changed her clothing in days is totally normal. I don’t even know the last time she showered; Definitely not before the Event prior to the explosion.”

Steve inhaled deeply. “I spoke to her in the medical tent. She seemed … good?”

“ _No,_ ” Kamala huffed out, pushing her hands downward into fists at her sides. “That’s the thing! Even there, in the medic tent, she was faking! She almost died up there, Cap. She–she could have been blown to smithereens and all that. You saved her, she was alive. But it ... it was like she didn’t even know how to register that.”

Steve waited a moment before interjecting. “That is common with folks who’ve been through–”

_“This_ wasn’t _that_ ,” Kamala uttered sharply. “She was _faking_ it. I could tell. She wanted to get back out there, _up there_ ,” she pointed skyward. “to them. She’s obsessed. She didn’t even register much pain from the blast. Her concussion, she didn’t mind it. You know why?”

Steve shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes from hers.

“Because I bet she didn’t even _feel_ it. Like, her head’s so messed up, it barely made an impact. She’s been getting so many migraines since day one of being on this stupid base, it probably feels like nothing, like jangling her brain into mush isn’t worthy of a CT.”

Steve blinked.

Migraines. Jane had mentioned that. Hell, _he’d_ been getting them too. Shit. He’d brushed them off because what kind of stressful op didn’t come with a headache or two? Should he have been paying more attention to Jane?

“She gets them continuously,” Kamala went on, “You can tell because she’s always squinting and her face is pale and she’s popping Tylenol like it’s going out of style. She keeps forgetting her glasses, Cap. She _needs_ them to _read._ ”

“Really?” Steve exhaled, feeling a growing wave of concern rise inside him. “She’s not prone to headaches? Migraines?”

“No!” Kamala cried out, frustration evident in her tone. “It’s because of this job, this place, those _things!”_ She flailed her arms. “Something’s messing with her. This whole job is fucking her up. Excuse my French, but this shit ain’t normal. You’ve got to help her. Maybe it’s radiation, or soundwaves, microwaves, something. She’s not fine anymore and she can’t fake it. Not around us. We know her too well.”

She blinked up at Steve with a fire in her eyes. “She’s going to break herself into pieces.” Her voice wavered and Steve could feel it, could see the panic in her. She was scared. Scared for Jane.

Jane had been hiding this from them. She’d failed, but the attempt in itself meant there was some reason for it, some purpose that wasn’t obvious to the rest of them.

Jane was his responsibility. How could he possibly have overlooked this? He thought back over their many interactions. She’d always been on fire, jabbering away about her passion for language, and her desire to make this mission work. What had he missed? Surely she was just manifesting her stress? He recalled how she shook with nerves, how intense she was about planning and executing interactions with the Heptapods. 

He thought back to the last Event. That one alone would be enough to ratchet up anyone’s anxieties to unscalable heights. 

He recalled the look on Jane’s face when they pushed the aliens for a better word than weapon, and how the Heptapods kept reusing the same symbol. 

Jane’s eyes had been glassy, wide. Her skin had been damp, sweaty, her hair sticking to her neck.

Steve swallowed, her profile burned into his mind. She hadn’t been wearing her glasses.

Steve stared down at Kamala and felt the well of dread filling up inside his body. The waves lapped at his conscience, rising higher, higher, the depth and darkness beneath the waves creeping upwards. How long had this feeling been building inside him? At what point would he have become aware of it himself? This wasn’t misplaced anxiety, the sort he could ignore. There really was something going on, something else at work.

How long had _he_ been feeling this? He wasn’t the only one affected. Jane was feeling it too, perhaps even at a higher level, a more intense, a worse level.

“Shit,” he wiped a hand over his face. His own head throbbed, right behind his forehead. “Where is she now?” he asked.

Kamala frowned, “Andy got her to go eat something. They’re back in our tent.”

“Okay,” Steve said, thinking. “We need to prepare her for leave. She can’t really do much more now that it’s over,” he said solemnly, angry that it had come to this in the end. “Let me talk to her, after she’s eaten.”

“I can bring her to the main tent, maybe?” Kamala said. “Give us an hour or two? I want to get her showered and maybe even back to the Doc.”

“Yes, good idea,” Steve said, trying to inject some conviction into his voice. “I’ll get to Hill, see if we can expedite getting you guys out of here.”

Kamala nodded fervently. “Okay.”

Maybe that would put an end to Jane’s stress, her pain. Maybe getting as far away from this cursed base would help.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve split off, he discovered James hadn’t gone too far after all. The man was standing off to the side of the worn path through the grass. He was staring up at the sky, toward the alien pod.

“Hey,” Steve said. James turned and nodded, following along.

They made it to the mess tent, which was empty. About half of the tables and benches had been moved out and shipped back to wherever they'd come from.

Steve walked over to the food counter and looked over the few menu options in the metal trays behind the glass.

"Well, I hope you've still got an appetite," he said, looking at James, who'd come up beside him. "'Cos mine's wavering a little."

James glared at the food, then shrugged. "I've eaten worse."

Steve crooked a brow at that. "Worse than boiled brussel sprouts, baked beans, what looks like really burnt mystery meat and mashed potatoes?"

The cook came over with a smile. "It's not all bad, sir," he grinned. "We got your greens, your meats, your carbs, all of it."

Steve rolled his eyes and nodded at the plates beside the cook."Load 'em up."

The cook did as he asked, piling two plates for each of them. He must be used to seeing them do the same again and again.

James said, "Orange juice. Two.” He held up his two fingers to emphasize the request. He hadn’t replaced his gloves yet, though he kept the metal arm out of sight.

They thanked the cook and turned to the empty tent with their laden food trays.

Steve frowned.

Okay, so _not_ empty tent.

He followed James to the back corner where a familiar redhead sat with her one boot propped on the bench beside her.

"Natasha," Steve said, sliding his tray across the table. "You eaten?"

She eyed the grey meat and steaming vegetables and shook her head.

Steve looked her over. She must have showered. The scratches along her cheek were clean and her hair was combed and tied back for once.

She had a fresh fleece SHIELD jacket on, zipped up under her chin. It was standard-issue cold-weather workout gear. Maybe the rain was getting to her.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked.

She looked at him then, eyes staring back like emeralds. They hadn't seen each other since the explosion.

"How's your neck?" Steve asked.

"You ask a lot of questions," she said. Steve was reminded of the time in the mess tent when James had said the same thing.

"I'm just ... asking," he sighed. "There's no ulterior motives here."

Natasha watched him spoon some potatoes into his mouth. "My neck is better," she murmured. "Especially after a hot shower."

Steve nodded.

She was silent again, watching the two men scarf down forkful after forkful.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said after a few minutes.

Steve looked up, surprised.

"Don't act so horrified," she snapped, "I can worry too. You didn't patent it, Captain."

Steve held his knife and fork up, mouth full.

"We're lucky any of us survived that blast," she said. "I've been thinking about it a lot."

"I wouldn't worry," Steve said, swallowing, and cracked open his orange juice, taking a long swig. "We got out."

"Hm," she said, folding her arms and tucking her rogue leg under the table. Steve felt her boots kick at his as she moved.

"You think the Heptapods knew?"

Steve paused and looked up.

James stopped his own relentless chewing.

"What? That the bomb was there?"

"Yeah, why not?" she said, leaning forward. "They'd have seen what went down. Maybe even saw who put it there.”

Steve pondered that.

Why would she worry about that? What was done was done.

He thought back. Natasha hadn't been around immediately after the last proper event. She’d slinked off somewhere.

She watched the thoughts fly over his features.

"No, I did _not_ set the bomb," she sighed and rolled her eyes. "Thanks for your faith in me."

Steve frowned.

"I didn't say you did."

"You didn't have to," she said. "But I get it. Soviet agent with enough undercover experience and a possible career in explosive-setting? Sure why not?"

"You didn't do it," James muttered. "Too heavy," he said around a mouthful. He pointed his fork at her and closed one eye, like he was measuring her up. "Too small to carry that much C4."

"Oh great, now the Captain thinks we're in cahoots and you're covering me," she said wryly.

Steve pursed his lips. This wasn’t really an amusing topic.

"I don't understand why the bomb was up there. _Did_ you do it?" he looked at both of them with a quizzical eye. Clearly he was beyond artifice.

The Russians seemed surprised he would ask.

"No," James said plainly, followed by Natasha's echoing sentiment.

The two of them stared back at Steve like he was some swamp monster that had crawled out of the hillside.

"What?" he frowned.

"You think if the person who did it was sitting here, they'd just _answer?_ " James asked, incredulous.

"Give him a break, дружище," Natasha said, "He's old."

Steve squinted at her, running his tongue round the back of his teeth. He turned to James who was nodding while he poked his own fork through a pile of brussel sprouts.

James looked up at Steve through his stupidly long eyelashes. "What?" he said.

Steve snorted and shook his head.

The two of them kept eating. It certainly helped with Steve's mental state. He was continuously craving sustenance at this point.

It didn't taste that bad, if he was honest.

Maybe James was right; eating boiled food would always be better than nothing.

It was becoming this pleasant habit where not only were their appetites being sated, but they’d be given a moment to sit and think in a comfortable silence.

When they had first met, Steve had been concerned about opening a limited form of dialogue between himself and the Russians. Niceties, even if he hadn’t liked the look of them. He understood now that there were ways to get closer to someone without having to play pretend-friends. James was good at being a sobering, silent partner in Steve’s mission to eat his own weight in food. And Natasha … well, she was interesting.

Steve finished up his meal. He wiped at his fingers with a paper napkin and scrunched it up into a ball before dropping it onto his clean plate.

James followed a few moments later. The guy really was as hungry as Steve.

“You gonna get some more rest before the next briefing?” Steve murmured, twisting off the cap of his orange juice and taking a sip.

James shrugged and sat with his back straight. He twisted his head around on his neck, stretching the muscles.

Natasha shrugged as well. “I’ve got things to do.”

“We’ve got a lot to figure out,” Steve said. He finished off the rest of his juice, wondering if they sold this brand in New York. He’d become attached to the acidic drink. He thought a lot about New York. His life back there, his empty apartment. What was it going to be like to re-enter a regular as clockwork existence? Would that even be possible, what with the international meltdown going on?

“Right, well, we might as well get going, Briefing or no.” 

James nodded and stacked Steve’s plate and trash on his own before standing up and taking their utensils back to the kitchen counter.

Steve wondered idly how much longer the kitchen crew would remain here. There was basically only one guy left working the grill anyhow. 

He made to stand up and winced. His side throbbed and it felt like half his nerve endings around his shoulder blade were on fire. He tried to mask his reactions.

“What’s wrong?” James said, immediately zeroing in on him. He reached out a hand as Steve struggled to get his right leg over the table’s bench seat, his boot catching in the most awkward fashion, causing him to stumble.

“It’s nothing,” Steve said, getting ahold of himself and standing upright, even if he could still feel the thrumming of blood under his skin. The look on James’ face made him roll his eyes. It was not unfamiliar to him, that look of tired exasperation. “It’s fine. _I’m_ fine. I’m still healing, is all.”

He raised his left arm to stretch it out and immediately regretted trying. Pain lanced down his arm and unfurled in his knuckles, causing him to clench and unclench his fist. He clearly hadn’t hidden that reaction well.

“You should go to the medical tent,” Natasha said, climbing out of her seat with measured grace and ease. She came around to inspect him. Though she didn’t touch him, her eyes were keen and it felt like they were digging into his soft parts, poking where they shouldn’t. “If you’re hurting–”

“I’m not,” Steve said, trying to stay the churlish tone in his voice. “It’s just a bit of bruising.”

“You look like your face is going to melt,” James said, voice dry. “Trying to pretend you’re fine?”

Steve glared at him. “I’m serious, it’s not _that_ bad. Let me go and I can change my bandages again.”

“They need changing?” James frowned, hand coming up to steady Steve. “You want to go back to the tent?”

That sounded like a much better alternative to wasting the doctor and medics’ time on his fast-acting healing factor. “Yeah,” he grumped, conceding the minimal amount of defeat. He wasn’t getting out of this, he could tell. Typical. This is what happened when you befriended dangerous covert operatives: they start to fuss and focus on you instead of their missions.

“I’m going,” he huffed at the arched brow Natasha gave him. “Look, see? Walking, leaving. Going now.”

“I’ll check in at the briefing. What, eighteen-hundred hours?” She looked at her watch, a simple black thing hidden under her athleisure sleeve.

Steve sighed and nodded, “I’ll be there.” And with that, Natasha turned on her heel and exited the mess tent. 

He probably did need to check his bandages. His ribs felt warm, overheating from serious healing activity or a deathly infection. Either way, he should probably give it a once-over.

As he made his way out of the mess tent and onto base, he hadn’t counted on James following him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice acrid. Maybe the pain was getting to him. He _had_ left it a while...

“Making sure you follow through,” James said calmly. He walked beside Steve, unperturbed by the wincing and the heavy breathing.

“I’m not going to run away,” Steve griped.

“I’m making sure of that,” James said, and the bastard actually _smiled_ like he thought he was funny. Yeah, a real funny guy.

He had a nice smile, though. It was gentle, unsure, as if it didn’t come out often enough to be confident of its presence.

Steve sighed and kept going. “Our time here’s up, you know,” he murmured.

They made it onto grass, wet grass. It seemed Montana was forever damp. The rain was slower, sparse, but now an ever-present aspect of this whole adventure.

James walked silently beside him, eyes focused on the ground. 

Steve watched him. “Before I start making plans, what were your initial thoughts once this gig was over?”

James looked up, skyward. He squinted at the few rays of sunlight peeking through the pale grey clouds. “I didn’t have any thoughts.”

“None? No plan for after?” Steve asked.

“No,” James said. He stared ahead now. The grass spread out around them, only marred by the odd set of tents here and there. Without the walls and hallways, it looked like some poorly-constructed campground with minimal facilities. “My plan was to survive,” James said. He glanced at Steve. “We didn’t have much hope of getting in here, much less getting to work with you.”

“Well, it’s not about me,” Steve waved his hand. “It’s never gonna be. I just wondered whether you had new ideas, new plans for the future?”

James considered this while they walked. “Hydra is still looking for us. We will not be safe. They can infiltrate anywhere.”

Steve frowned, “Is there nothing we can do to offset that? Give you more time?”

James laughed, a short, deep chuckle that bubbled up from deep inside him. “The only way to stop Hydra, is to destroy Hydra. There is no in-between.”

“So…” Steve’s brow furrowed as he considered this. “We eliminate Hydra?”

James blinked and turned to look at him. He was surprised, perhaps thrown off by such a thought. “Did you hit your head?”

Steve laughed, “Oh hell, yes, many, _many_ times, my friend. But I’ve always been like this.” He tapped his finger against his temple. 

“You cannot stop Hydra,” James said, incredulity in his voice. “They have outlasted Hitler, Stalin and the Cold War, they’ve seeped into everything. You can’t even understand the levels of government and corporations they run now.”

Steve shrugged. “Well, then with your intel we can root them out. We can put an end to them.” He smiled, small and light. “I thought my going into the ice had done it, you know. I thought that was enough. The fact they continued to proliferate and _flourish_?” He shook his head, “It’s haunted me ever since I woke up.”

James frowned, eyes flicking around them. They refocused on Steve and he set his jaw.

“I can help,” he said, voice low. “I want to help. If yo–if SHIELD wants to give me the chance. Me, we, Natasha and I, we will help.”

Steve could hear the pressure in James’s voice, the desire to latch onto a foothold, to not get immediately thrown in prison or tossed aside. He didn’t want to sound desperate, but after Hydra, after years of torture, how could he not?

Steve smiled again, holding back a wince as his arm twitched. “Yeah, I think that could work.”

He could feel ... somehow in his bones, that they not only could, but that they _would_ dig out Hydra from its crevices and hiding places. It was going to happen. He’d had enough of sweating through the guilt and the horror of his world gone awry. He didn’t know how he knew it, he just did. He wasn’t going to lie back and take the world as it was anymore. He was going to fucking fix it.

 

* * *

 

They approached the tent at the end of their row. Steve held the flap open and waved James in.

James rolled his eyes and muttered, “Martyr.”

Steve followed him inside, relief flooding him as he spotted the metal bed and thin mattress waiting for him.

It only just occurred to him that he didn’t have a blanket.

He frowned, “Hey, did you ever get a comforter, or sheets or something to cover you while you slept?”

James moved to sit down on the edge of his own bunk. “We were given sleeping bags?”

Right.

Steve frowned and moved over to the end of his bed. He sat down, albeit creakily. He winced as his body cried out, muscles stiff, trying to compensate for his limited mobility. 

_God, getting blown up really sucked._

He panted for a moment, catching his breath as his body deflated, releasing all the shakes he’d been holding tight to him. Fuck, he really was sore.

“You going to pass out?” James said.

Steve twisted and looked at him. James was watching him. Steve shifted, bending low to unlace his boots. He kicked them off, then scooted around the corner of the bed so he was at least facing James. He stared down at his white socks. They had stains from the inside of his black boots. Then he looked up at James. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t _look_ okay,” James said, almost angry, just like Sarah Rogers. Steve had realized as a young boy that sometimes when someone was mad enough to spit, it could be that they cared. Sometimes.

Steve sat up straight. He unzipped his regulation jacket and shrugged out of it. His grey long-sleeve tee was snug.

“I just need rest, like, for a second,” Steve muttered. He pulled at his shirt and gasped at the pain that rippled up his ribs.

“Jesus,” James said and when Steve got his head free, confused, it was to find James’ shocked, wide eyes looking over his injuries. “I thought you were _okay_?” James hissed. “You’re a _mess!_ ”

Steve looked down at the mottled patches of black and blue and yellowing bruises that wrapped around his torso and onto his back. He twisted and tried to reach for the bandage taped to his ribs.

“Let me,” James said, voice gravelly and hard. “You can’t fix that yourself.”

So Steve twisted where he sat and James tugged at the tape and pulled away the damp bandage. Steve sighed with relief when he saw that the dampness was from sweat and not blood.

“Oh, thank God, I thought I was bleeding through.”

“Were you going to _tell_ anyone?” He sounded peeved.

Steve made a face, “Pal, this’ll be gone by morning. There’s no point–”

“So you’ve been walking around, thinking you’re bleeding out, in agony, and you don’t think people should know or help you?”

“It’s not that–” Steve huffed but was cut off by the icy look in James’ eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” James said, the hint of slavic curling back into the edges.

Steve rolled his eyes and waved at his pack, which was on the floor. “Bandages in there.”

James griped through the reapplication of padding and tape, but his hands were gentle, big and steady against Steve’s skin.

“You crashed through steel and came out alive,” James murmured after a moment. “No wonder you’re hurt.”

Steve shrugged.

James sat back, allowing Steve to twist back into a comfortable seated position where his muscles weren’t being pulled at odd angles.

“I get hurt a lot.”

James glared at him.

His warm right hand rested on Steve’s knee.

For someone as hard and caustic round the edges, the man sure did have a soft touch.

Steve looked at James, recalling their first meeting with the face mask and the tension of International operatives poking their noses into his mission.

A lot had changed.

James had a sharpness to his eyes, a gentleness to his features. He was big and strong, and dangerous, of course. But he wasn’t _just_ that. Something poked at the soft part at the back of Steve’s brain. He winced.

James frowned, hand coming up. Steve noticed he was careful to not use his metal arm much. Maybe he was aware it freaked people out.

“Your head again?” James said softly, too softly.

“I just need a rest,” Steve rubbed at his eyebrows, trying to shove the pain away.

“Then rest,” James murmured. 

Steve sighed and eyed the measly bed he’d been given.

“I’ll be here,” James said. “I’m not going to go anywhere. Briefing isn’t for an hour or so anyway.”

_God, time really is a construct,_ Steve thought miserably. What was it like to have a normal body clock? 

“I–” Steve hesitated, his body just deflating like a hot air balloon that had been grounded. “I’m so fucking tired.”

“Then rest,” James said.

The Russian sat back on his own bunk and dug out what looked to be a novel from under his sleeping bag. Perhaps it was the same one Natasha had been reading? Steve wouldn’t put it past them to share everything.

Steve considered his options but eventually, his body decided for him. He lowered himself to the bed and shut his eyes.

* * *

 

 

> _I wasn’t there when it happened. I got the call._
> 
> _You were gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Everything we’d built together, every moment…gone._
> 
> _I lost you because science wasn’t good enough, because medicine wasn’t there yet. You were perfect, destined to greater things, and it wasn’t time that took you away; It was this decaying world where we poisoned ourselves with chemicals and gases and greed._
> 
> _I remember feeling like the world had dropped away. Nothing mattered anymore. The world was full of billions of people and yet, I was completely irrevocably alone._

* * *

 

“Steve,” someone was pushing at his shoulder. _“Steve!”_

He jolted awake, mouth still forming the word.

“No!” he cried out, clutching at his head.

James’ voice was over him.

“You were having a dream. A nightmare?”

“No!” Steve barked, wincing as pain lanced through his head and he saw spots. He saw white. Mist. Hands. Hair, long brown hair. He could barely see through the tears. He couldn’t breathe. He was terrified.

Then he opened his eyes. He wasn’t crying. These were not his tears.

“What. The _Fuck!”_ he cried out, shaking all over. “What is happening? Whose thoughts, whose _lives_  are these?” He knew he sounded crazy, voice hissing through his clenched teeth. He rolled into a sitting position. James fell back into a crouch beside the bed.

“You were…dreaming…” James said, clearly concerned.

“These things!” Steve finally felt wetness at his eyes and he brushed at them angrily, wishing them away. He shouldn’t be crying! He didn’t understand! Why was this still happening? When would it stop? What was wrong with him?

“Why am I seeing these things? Who are these people?” he gasped out, pressing the heel of both palms to his eyes.

James’ hand pressed to Steve’s knee.

“Natasha…she said you…lost someone,” James said softly.

Steve pulled his hands away, anger flaring behind his tongue. “I _didn’t_ ,” he hissed. “Not this. I haven’t lost anything since the fucking _war._ And that was because I drove a plane into the Atlantic, for fuck’s sake!” He huffed, the images flashing before him: the mist, the shadows, the hands, the drawings, the light. He heard voices, laughter, a rumbling voice.

“I haven’t…” he sucked in a breath, remembering the hospital ward, the bed, the funeral.

“I haven’t lost anyone. Not like this,” he said angrily. “This is some fucked up shit.”

James looked concerned.

“Do you want to go to the medic tent?”

“No,” Steve huffed and wiped haphazardly at his cheeks. “No, I need to get my shit into gear. This…forget this. It never happened.”

James backed off hurriedly when Steve got to his feet.

Steve kicked around for his boots, his jacket. _Fuck,_ he’d fallen asleep shirtless, like some rookie on leave.

“Ow,” he winced as his side twinged.

“Where are you going?” James asked, perplexed, concern bleeding into his voice. "You're still injured."

“I don't care. I need some air,” Steve snapped. He broke a shoelace, tightening up too hard. Fuck it. He tucked the lace into his boot and got up. He turned away from James, intent on blocking out the look he saw there. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need that. He yanked at his jacket, trying to speed up the process of escaping. "Don't follow me."

Once presentable, he ignored James’ protests and headed out, back into the dull, grey world outside.


End file.
